


the blood of both is my limbo

by tokyometropolis (mesohorany)



Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Angel!Jens, Angel!Robbe, Angel/Demon AU, Basically my own twisted reinvention of what life after death is like, But it's only KIND OF enemies?, Demon!Sander, Demon!Senne, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Future Hurt/Comfort, Hate to Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Past Drug Addiction, M/M, Major Character Death BUT THEY DON'T ACTUALLY DIE, Mentions of hard drug use, Mutual Pining, Purgatory, Slow Burn, future fluff, future smut, mythical creatures galore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:29:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 69,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21912202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mesohorany/pseuds/tokyometropolis
Summary: Robbe spends his entire human life in total disbelief of the whole heaven-hell-religion thing. Luckily for him, it turns out that being a genuinely kind and selfless agnostic is enough to grant him Angel status in the afterlife. Meanwhile, a series of horrific events forces Sander to make some reckless choices with unfortunate consequences...but when he's turned into a Demon, he realizes that what happens after death is nothing like the story the church tells. AKA Skam Afterlife, because in this parallel universe Isak and Even meet in Purgatory and have to overcome the slight problem that one's an angel and one's a demon.
Relationships: Sander Driesen/Robbe IJzermans
Comments: 235
Kudos: 485





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> OOOF well this one came about because I was making light-leak photo edits of S3 and [this happened](https://luludemauryyy.tumblr.com/post/189471681923/okay-look-i-know-the-angeldemon-au-is-overdone) soooo of course inspiration struck immediately. The outline of this one is intense and the slow burn is REAL so hold on to your butts, kids. 
> 
> I highly recommend listening to [Tyrant - River Bones](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S40KVjsdCCM) and [this playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4uT6m1MgHqnDyaICYy0FlH) while you read this. Good headspace for this atmosphere. 
> 
> Title from "Hollow" - Cloudeater

Robbe wasn’t religious when he was human.

He’d seen enough of the other side of normality to know beyond certitude that there _was_ something else out there - different worlds, planes of existence, parallel universes if you will - but he’d never signed his name on the dotted line of Organized Religion X’s membership agreement, and he’d never harbored a single regret about it. His mother had made it a _POINT_ , capital P, to remind him as often as she could that it bothered her to no end when he absolutely refused to partake in any bit of the whole ridiculous package: Sunday services, family Bible readings, mission trips (although he’d tagged along to Ecuador with the church once as a preteen just to get out of Europe, see how the sun shone on another part of the world, if it hit different angles than in Antwerp).

“The best people I know, Mum,” he’d said to her patiently, over and over, “don’t cover themselves up with Bible verses and priest robes.”

Meaning the best people he knew were mostly atheist, or agnostic. To his mother, such viewpoints were unacceptable, horrific, hell-sending; to Robbe, they were a respite. He heard enough about miracles and prayer at home, enough to know that virtue didn’t arise from fifty bent-knee Hail Marys or saving oneself for the marriage bed. To him, virtue came from human decency, from saving his extra batch of French fries for the nice homeless guy who hung out near the petrol station round the way from Robbe’s university, from letting his best friend bum class notes when he had to miss biology to take his dad to chemo treatments. The thing about religion to Robbe was: it felt FORCED. Nothing about a genuinely decent deed felt anything but authentic to him, and that was how he learned to judge good versus evil.

He wasn’t sure he really believed in the kind of evil his mother’s Bible talked about, anyway. Wasn’t everything the way it was because of the system by which humans assigned meaning? Time, calendars, age...he didn’t see where the differences split. Good was good because he knew it in his chest as warmth and sun-radiance; bad was bad because it felt the opposite, wrong like total silence in a sunwashed forest or an unease in his gut, but that didn’t mean it was _demonic_.

But in the end it didn’t make a difference whether Robbe’s character was _good_ or _bad_ , integrity couldn’t protect him; in fact, it killed him He died at the age of twenty-two years old, three months shy of graduating university, pushing a child out of the way of a wild driver who’d careened up onto the sidewalk. He didn’t suppose it mattered to his mother whether he’d died performing an act of selflessness or accidentally injecting the wrong measure of heroin into his veins, because he hadn’t been baptized at her Catholic Church.

*

Except he didn’t die. Not actually.

“I really shouldn’t be doing this.”

Robbe was perplexed, still hazy from the blood loss and shock and slowly fading consciousness, the acceptance of imminent blackness – but above him was only gold. And...a face?

He squinted. The face was too young to be God – at least if He was supposed to look like that typical cliché old-man often seen in artistic renderings – and it seemed human in every visible way, but something about the symmetry, the smoothness of the skin, the _shimmer_ seemed far too perfect for the species that Robbe knew as diverse and unique and flawed. He thought of the only possible explanation for the faultless, glittery humanoid being hovering above him and blurted it aloud.

“Are you a vampire?”

The beautiful face scrunched up once, then exploded into mirth.

“Kid, you really didn’t strike me as the _Twilight_ type.”

“Kid?” Robbe was offended; the guy – or whatever he was – couldn’t have been much older than Robbe himself. “How old are _you_ , then?”

“I lost count at around four hundred and twenty-three, and that was _ages_ ago,” said the being, bored. “Doesn’t matter right now. Drink this, okay? We wait any longer and this process will be a lot worse than it needs to be, and you’ve already been through a load of shit.”

And before Robbe could even get a single coherent thought in his head the being had forced a vial containing a liquid that was both impossibly thick and impossibly gold up to his mouth and shoved it in.

He swallowed without thinking, all of him suddenly afire from the inside, pleasant cinnamon burn like a hot toddy on a glacial January night. When he’d finished the container the man took it from him, stowed it in his jacket pocket, glanced surreptitiously around. It was then that Robbe realized that the world surrounding them had gone absolutely silent, then that he realized that they were delimited by that same strange gilded light he’d noticed when he’d come back to consciousness, then that he realized that he was no longer on any sort of Earth he’d ever known before.

“What the fuck,” he started to say, and then he whited out.

And that was how Robbe Ijzermans – sweet, unproblematic, agnostic Robbe Ijzermans of Antwerp, Belgium, who never had an undesirable word to say about anyone but who had never voluntarily entered a church in his life – became an angel.

*

Purgatory wasn’t at all what Robbe expected it to be.

He was used to it now, having become a frequent flier during the five human years that had passed since he’d gained official angel status (“you’ll stop tracking things strictly in human time eventually,” Jens kept telling him, but Robbe didn’t understand how he’d ever be able to stop), but when he’d first glimpsed the place he hadn’t been able to comprehend how _normal_ it was. In fact, it was so like Earth that he’d refused to believe that every strange thing that had occurred since the car accident wasn’t all some elaborate dream and he was still very much alive, curled up in his wreck of a bed clinging to the last hours of sleep that remained before class.

Jens had found his skepticism adorable, then amusing, then unexpectedly sad.

“I could prove it to you, like for _real_ for real,” he’d said, slanting his body like the absolute carefree model that he was against the doorframe of the curio shop they were passing, “but you don’t want to see what your human body looked like when I found you. Trust me.”

Robbe had peered sideways at him, at once sickened and darkly fascinated, and Jens had arched an eyebrow at him.

“No.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.”

And so, slowly, Jens had verified Robbe’s newly adopted state of being in other ways – doing the rounds in Purgatory, Upper Atmosphere, and Lower Earth (which were, respectively, the equivalent of what humans thought of as “heaven” and “hell”, although it soon became quite obvious that things were a lot more complicated than _that_ ). He wasn’t allowed to go back to Antwerp for approximately a century – or until the last living person that might recognize him had passed away – but he was permitted to go to other parts of Earth, places that no one in life had known him. Halos and wings weren’t a thing (“at least not for us – I think some seraphim still keep theirs while they’re in the UA,” said Jens) but Robbe’s back, shoulders, and upper arms were now fully swathed in an intricate golden tattoo, one wing on each side, and when he moved they shone like sunlight on a glass sea. His senses were, suddenly, all overblown, and when Jens had cut his palm with a strange, sharp instrument that looked a bit like a kitchen knife he had felt no pain, bled liquid the exact color of a first-place trophy, and watched in pure astonishment as his skin had healed itself instantaneously.

Now, standing on the rooftop of one of his favorite nightclubs in Greater Purgatory (because _yes_ they had nightclubs in Purgatory, _of course_ they had nightclubs in Purgatory, _why the hell wouldn’t they_ have nightclubs in Purgatory), he looked down at his hand and smiled. He had no scars anymore, no marks but for the tattoos cascading across his back. Being a mid-tier angel wasn’t a bad gig, although he did get a bit bored with perfection every now and then. That was why he spent a great deal of his down time frolicking in the in-between. There were humans here, and creatures that hadn’t existed – at least not visibly – in the human world, as well as rumors of demons – not just rumors, according to Jens, _realities_ , although it was rare that they came _here_ , most of them knew well enough to stay on their side of the sphere – and Robbe could not spend enough time simply lurking in corners and watching his eccentric new cohort pass by. Afterlife wasn’t bad in Purgatory; it was about as challenging as his day-to-day existence had been on Earth, albeit with slightly less scenery and a lot more gray sky.

“You think that,” said Jens, appearing behind Robbe with two frothing, smoking chalices, “but you’d regret it after about five decades. Less, depending on your tolerance.”

“My tolerance,” said Robbe with some irritation, “for you doing that mind-reading bullshit is _low_.”

Jens flashed his thieflike smirk. The cross dangling from his left earlobe glinted. “I keep you on your toes, Ijzermans.”

“You’re the reason I still _have_ toes, Stoffels. _Santé._ ”

They drank. This was another aspect of afterlife that had stunned Robbe to his middle: there was _alcohol_.

Furthermore: _angels were permitted to drink it._

“Well, yeah,” Jens had said, when Robbe had questioned him. “What kind of existence would be worthwhile without the option to get hammered?”

“But.” Robbe had blinked and blinked and blinked until his head had swiped clean enough to rearrange disheveled thought into lucidity. “You’re an angel.”

“So are you, kid.”

Now Jens licked at the lip of his glass, chasing foam; Robbe watched him with an idle interest, careful to keep his face turned in just a way that Jens couldn’t catch him staring. For a minor deity, Jens was exceptionally vain; he was a Michelangelo masterpiece and he was not ashamed to broadcast the fact that he knew it. Today he was wearing a white oxford half-unbuttoned over dark jeans, gilded ropes dangling down his flawless chest, sleeves pushed up to unveil a suggestion of flashing ink. To look at him was almost painful.

(When Robbe had seen himself in the mirror for the first time after being reborn, he’d been shocked. His imperfections had vanished: the freckles and scars and marks that had crisscrossed his face, the slight off-angle of his nose, the asymmetry of his eyebrows – all gone. He was still himself, certainly, but the novel perfection of his countenance was astonishing.

“Are angels allowed to be vain?”

“Hey, we aren’t perfect,” Jens, preening beside him in the mirror, had said. He’d switched his focus to Robbe’s face, huge hand cupping the back of his neck, the fresh scar lines of Robbe’s tattoo burning. “Nothing about afterlife is at all like they teach you, kid. They don’t have a clue. There’s a lot you don’t know.”)

“Long day?”

“Day.” Robbe withdrew from his own head, snorted. “What’s that?”

“You are preaching,” said Jens calmly, “to the literal choir.” (Indeed, he was part of the Choir of Angels, sang a brassy bass that had ripped gooseflesh all the way down to Robbe’s toes when he’d first heard the sound of Jens’s voice.)

“Touche. Nah, not long. I didn’t do much.” Robbe turned his head, scanned the crowd milling below; one of Medusa’s lesser Gorgon cousins was making her way across the courtyard and as he watched the crush of people parted like a page break for her hunted pathway. None of the other Gorgons except Stheno and Euralye could transform their observers to stone – that trick didn’t exactly work in Purgatory anyway – but no one liked to get too close to a single one of them nevertheless. Gorgon snakes bit the same regardless of the status of their mistress.

“No one to save?”

“No. I think Raphael wanted to give me a break after that nuclear crisis I averted in the Ukraine the other day.”

“Lucifer.” Jens swallowed, hissed through his teeth. “You’d think that lot would have learned their lesson after Chernobyl.”

“Humans are stupid,” said Robbe, shrugging. “I can say that with confidence. I’m not too far removed from them yet.”

“Yeah, well. I _am_ far removed, and I agree with you. They’re like puppies or something.” Jens grinned, chucked under Robbe’s chin. “Sweet but dumb. Like you saving that kid’s life.”

“Fuck off.” Swearing was permitted, too, although Robbe’s favorite human curses (goddamn, Jesus fuck) were Not Allowed on the tongues of angels. They could misuse demonic titles as much as they wanted, however, and with Jens it was all or nothing: he liked to call upon the Prince of Darkness himself to lend a bit of flavor to his vernacular.

“Don’t think I will,” said Jens lightly. “Nothing interesting to report?”

“No. Some unusual mercreature activity off the coast of Norway, but nothing of importance in the land of the blissfully ignorant.” He meant those humans who remained unaware of the various other planes of existence. “And you?”

“Mercreature activity?” Jens groaned, puffed out a hot, displeased breath so it blustered through his tousled fringe. “I hope it’s not one of mine.”

Robbe grinned. “Dunno. I’ll do some research for you when I’m out there next. Should be about five to seven business days, if the wind catches me right.”

“If it’s really that big, I’ll be finding out soon enough,” said Jens. “That brother and sister duo, the one I was telling you about – ”

“Oh, you mean the mermaid who’s always pulling an Ariel?”

“The one who always tries to get as close to land as possible without getting harpooned, yeah.” Jens was halfway through his drink already; Robbe could feel the stress curling off him in clouds. “She’s been stirring it up again lately. If she goes ashore, the brother will go after her, and to be honest I sense more trouble from him than from her.”

Of all the active cases Jens had running right now, this was Robbe’s favorite: he had always been stunned by the sea, how unknowable it was, black hole of the Earth. “Doesn’t he spend all his time hanging out with sharks and whales?”

“Yeah,” said Jens, musing. “But there’s something on land that’s going to draw him in, and it’s gonna get complicated.”

“Something?” Robbe arched his dark eyebrows. “Or someone?”

“Can’t see that far yet,” said Jens. He meant _into the future_. “It gets cloudy under the sea for me.”

“You don’t need to see,” said Robbe decisively, “if it’s going to _get complicated_ for a mercreature on land, it is definitely a some _one_.”

“Probably,” said Jens. He leaned over the railing by which they were standing, narrowed his eyes at the Gorgon cousin, still visible striking her hurried, widened track towards Lesser Purgatory. “Where the fuck is Eurydice going?”

“How can you even tell which Gorgon that is from here?”

“My spirit animal is a hawk,” said Jens cheekily.

“But they all look the _same_.”

“Nah. Their snakes are different colors and species,” said Jens. “Eurydice has these kind of coral-pink pit vipers. Very cool.”

Robbe tilted his head, twisted his mouth in concession. “That’s fair. Wanna follow her?”

Jens cut his eyes sly to the side, knowing. “Robbe.”

“What?” Robbe adopted his most virtuous visage: huge glimmering eyes, pious bow of a mouth, all innocence. “Don’t even act like you’re not interested in the business of Gorgons. You can tell them _apart_ , for fuck’s sake.”

“Alright, I won’t,” said Jens, “if you stop acting like you give a shit what she’s up to and admit that you just want to see Lesser Purgatory.”

Lesser Purgatory was the renowned haven of demons, the place from whence the devil’s legions were forbidden to leave when they visited the midway point between Earth and hell. Robbe had spent his entire afterlife chasing hints of what it might be like there; angels were allowed to venture into the LP, but from what little he had managed to wheedle from Jens they usually only went when it was absolutely necessary. It had taken an obnoxious amount of hounding to get Jens to admit that _yes I’ve been there, Izjermans, hot damn, it’s really not worth all this obsessing about_ but he had seen the shadow of untruth slash Jens’s eyes and knew that there was a depth to the tale that the elder angel was concealing. Since then he had made it his mission to learn as much about the LP as he could, even going so far as to slink cloaked by his Shield down to the entrance, but he’d been alone and young and he hadn’t been brave enough to pass over the border. He wasn’t sure if the Shield was enough to obscure him from the things that lurked in the LP, but he wasn’t stupid enough to risk going without an accomplice. Jens would have known what he’d done the second he looked into Robbe’s eyes, anyway, and he hadn’t felt like dealing with the repercussions of Jens’s well-meaning blusters.

“Yeah, okay,” said Robbe, dropping the mask. “I want to see it. But isn’t now the perfect time? Drinking Hour, no one’s paying attention, my Elder with me?”

Jens arched his spine, closed his eyes, sighed. Emptied his goblet and slammed it on the railing.

“Technically, I’m supposed to take you to see it anyway.”

“ _What_?” Robbe couldn’t decide whether to lend more of his emotion to disbelief or annoyance. “You’re supposed to show me the LP?”

“Yeah, yeah, calm down,” said Jens. “All Elders have to take their Fledglings to see it within the first ten human years of their new existence. It’s a rite of passage, of sorts, so you know what’s out there.”

“And you were just _not gonna tell me about this_?”

“I was going to tell you _eventually_ ,” said Jens. “But I knew you wouldn’t shut up about it if I gave you a timeline, so I thought it would be a nice surprise for a rough day.”

“So you’ve been more than once.”

Jens licked his lower lip, regarded Robbe stoically; his eyes were glinting, amused. “Uh huh.”

“You lying asshole, you would barely even admit to me that you’d _seen_ it.”

Jens raised his hands. “Ignorance is bliss, sweet pea.”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” said Robbe. He closed his eyes, breathed hard twice through his nose, settled. “That’s it, then. You’re taking me. Right now.”

He finished his drink, smacked it down besides Jens’s own. Then, before the older angel could object, Robbe grabbed his wrists, Shielded them both, and Warped.

They landed smoothly on an empty corner of the grey slate sidewalk below, out of range of anyone who might accidentally have been impacted by their sudden arrival. When Robbe had first learned to Warp he’d been messy and unpredictable, prone to teleporting directly on top of another being or in a puddle of mud or somewhere else equally inconvenient, but he’d improved vastly with practice and Jens hadn’t had to correct him in almost a year. Now Robbe basked at the automatic pride in Jens’s face before it faded into aggravation.

“ _Ijzermans._ I swear to Lucifer.”

“Maybe he’ll be there. You can swear to his face,” said Robbe, grinning.

“Shut the fuck up,” said Jens, but he smirked, too. “You realize this is a terrible time to go to the LP. Drinking Hour is a lot rowdier over there.”

Robbe found his eyes, hazy green and impassive, and searched them.

“And that’s a…bad thing.”

Jens flashed a grim grin. “You ever see a bar brawl on Earth?”

“Yeah. Once or twice.”

“Okay, so it’s like that,” said Jens, “but a hundred percent worse, because demons.”

Robbe sighed, gestured vaguely around them; within eyesight he caught a troll, a fae, at least two centaurs, all milling about like there was nothing more natural in the world, because here it _was_ natural. “Jens, it’s not like shit doesn’t happen in Greater Purgatory, either. Demons might not hang out here, but _nothing_ in GP is inherently good. I mean, are _angels_ even good, by Earth standards?”

“Fair point,” said Jens, and when their eyes locked again heat seared. “All right, little one. I’ll take you. But you do what I say and you don’t take down the Shield unless I tell you otherwise. Okay?”

“O captain, my captain,” said Robbe solemnly, straight-faced pulling from one of Jens’s favorite human films. Jens rolled his glittering eyes.

“Come on, then. You insufferable brat.”

“You love me,” said Robbe, preening, cheeky, and Jens made a sort of _pshaw_ noise in the back of his throat before he spun around and led Robbe into the shadows.

*

“Medusa won’t come,” said Senne, leaning back in his seat as he licked blood from his thumb, slow. “She never shows up to these things.”

“She’s coming.” Britt was drip-dark against the red splash of the wall, dead-eyed. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Senne’s grin was a blade-white slash. “Fuck off, harpy. Your word means less to me than dirt.”

“Fine, don’t trust me then,” said Britt, without venom. “Trust Thanatos. He’s the one who told me. Sander was there, weren’t you?”

In the back of the booth shielded by low low light, blank and sneering at the eyes, observing, Sander leaned lazily forward to rest his elbows on the table and sighed.

“I was. But Senne’s right, she’s not coming unless she comes. The word of a demon is tripe.”

“Sander, _you’re_ a demon.”

“I am.” Sander stirred one finger in his drink, dark liquid clinging to his porcelain skin. “And that’s how I can be so sure. Know thyself, Britt.”

It was funny, he thought, how confident he could sound preaching about self-knowledge when in reality he didn’t know _shit_ about who he was.

Once upon a time, Sander had been a sweet tawny-haired human boy, a bit daydreamy in school but endlessly skilled with art and words and language. When he’d been barely eighteen, his mother had passed away in a car accident, leaving his father to crumple into a useless, heartbroken shell and Sander to take the force of the blow. He’d lost pieces of himself every day until, two and a half years later, shattered and empty and by all accounts bereft of options, he had started seeking superficial solace in the power of his physicality. He knew enough by then to be cognizant of how others craved his body, the hot brush of his skin against theirs, the spike of flame that flared when he rested his gaze upon them. It was the one thing he felt sure of when everything else was draining away like the tide back to sea: others found him to be an ethereal kind of gorgeous, and beauty equated to status. His face granted him passage to VIP rooms at clubs he wasn’t technically old enough to enter; his sexuality allowed him the luxury of pretending - only if for a night - that fraught lust was just as fulfilling and meaningful as love. He learned how to do precisely what he needed to do in order to fulfill a plethora of desires and kinks and he soon discovered that the more tricks he added to his cache the greater his reach became. Individuals with heavier and heavier social clout were becoming everyday conquests to him; eventually, devoid of challenge, he stopped regarding them as conquests at all.

With money and influence, of course, came access. It wasn’t long before he realized how much easier it was to forget that his life was a facade when there was some sort of drug flowing perpetually through his system; consequently, by the age of twenty-two, he was doing cocaine almost daily, smoking powerful weed from the moment he opened his eyes until the second he closed them. His father never questioned the inexplicable influx of money; he’d stopped working long ago and had been reduced to a husk of a human curled in his rocking chair, zombie-eyed and radiating misery, left alone to wither. He didn’t speak more than was necessary, ate when Sander put food in front of him, slept as often as he could. For all the world it was though he had nothing left to live for, despite the relentless effort Sander had put in in to bring him back to Earth, show him that he still had a son who loved and cared for him, that he was _needed_. That he didn’t have to give up.

Strange, though, how _giving up_ could present itself in so many different ways. Sander and his father were both experts at numbing themselves; the difference might have been starkly visible within their methodologies, but their divergent means led to the same end. Forgetting.

Cocaine made him a machine; weed stroked his nerve endings numb, and he couldn’t recall how to feel until he found heroin and it gave him that power back with interest. All the meaningless sex he’d had over the past few years had stripped his capacity to assign emotion to physicality and no one had shown him any kind of genuine love since his mother had died and it was exactly what he’d thought he needed to get back on his feet. He could enjoy himself again, let his body take over and his mind appreciate the overwhelming pleasure that sex could bring, and for a while it seemed as though things might actually make an upturn. He started saving money for art school, started cooking more than eggs and boxed macaroni and cheese for his father, started watching the sunset again. His life seemed to be stabilizing at last.

Until the high stopped coming so easily, and he had to hunt to find product strong enough to get him back to the apexes he’d once attained so effortlessly. When Senne had found him he’d been face-up on the bathroom floor, having injected himself with such a strong dose that it was a miracle (even demons believed in those) his heart hadn’t stopped beating on the spot.

Sander had known he was dying. Senne was a black blur above his head, his heartbeat slowed to a faint, infrequent purr, veins thick as tar. He was twenty-three years old.

“Sander,” Senne had said, and then there was nothing.

When he’d awoken he’d been convinced of his own death. All around him was black, blacker than any kind of night he’d ever experienced in his life; he imagined this kind of impenetrable coal to be akin to the darkness that enveloped the bowels of the Parisian Catacombs when every tourist’s flashlight had disappeared for the day. But,

“You’re not dead.”

Senne had been sharp and shocking before him, tall, impassive.

“Why the fuck not,” Sander had spat, and it had stunned him how much he’d hoped otherwise.

“Because,” said Senne, and he’d reached out to glide a hand through Sander’s hair, “your human life was fucking terrible, and I thought you were due for something a lot better. Come look at yourself, little one.”

And through the darkness they were moving, the air gallivanting trickily around them; Sander wound his fingers through it and found it pressing back. When Senne pulled him in front of a mirror – one that appeared in front of them as suddenly as a strike of lightning – it didn’t surprise him to learn that he was naked.

“My eyes,” he said, croaky as he raised his fingers to his face; his pupils had turned a ferocious color of red and from them dripped a slow stream of scarlet liquid that evaporated before it could flow below his cheekbones. Blood.

“Yes.” Senne had been calm, static beside him. Sander had known him briefly in life; he’d been a regular at the strip club, although never one of Sander’s own personal clients. Now that he thought about it, he’d never actually _seen_ Senne with any of his coworkers – he’d just sort of been there, lurking, background noise.

“Senne, what are you?”

“Not just me,” Senne had said, amusement cresting around his mouth, in his eyes. They were a different color than what Sander remembered; he’d been certain they were brown, but the hue reflected there now was an undeniable, aggressive sort of violet.

Sander looked at him in the mirror.

“What am I.” He thought he knew; it wasn’t a question.

“We,” said Senne, “are demons. _Gratissimum_.”

*

At first, Sander had been resentful of his newfound eternity; now, he was constantly overcome with gratitude for Senne, for what he had done ( _“you saved me,”_ as his blood-tears turned to water, and Senne had kissed the top of his head and held him for hours, until he’d stopped shaking). As much as his human life had been a dumpster fire, his afterlife was a neverending adventure, and he was at risk for none of the things that had ravaged his prior existence: addiction, disease, crippling mental illness. He was clear of mind and pure of body and there was not a single substance available to him in any of the worlds he could inhabit that would destroy him. He was invincible.

All of that was fantastic, tremendous, and he was happy – happier than he could remember ever being as a mortal, even when his mother had been alive and his father had been more than a soul-phantom. But immortality couldn’t change the fact that he didn’t know himself.

Senne looked at him now and Sander could read in his elder’s face that he understood what a line he had just fed to Britt; they smirked imperceptibly at each other before Senne said:

“I don’t really give a shit if she comes or not. There have been more interesting things known to show up on Fight Night than the higher Gorgons.”

Sander’s head turned for that; when unimpressed, stoic Senne expressed genuine interest in something, that something never failed to be worthwhile. “Such as?”

“Lots of things, Driesen,” said Senne on a drawl, but he was smiling. “In this particular case, though, I’m talking about angels.”

_Angels_.

Both Britt and Sander sat up; Britt was just a harpy, so she was allowed to go roaming Greater Purgatory as often as she pleased – as long as she kept the trickery and drama to a minimum – and she’d seen an angel or two in her time, but she’d never gotten close enough to speak to one, and she was just as fascinated as the demon population about those golden unknowable beings.

“Angels?” Sander was skeptical. “At Exitium?”

“Mm.” Senne dipped a finger in his goblet of blood, sucked it clean. Even for a supernatural being, he had eccentric habits, habits that had led Sander to surmise that _demon_ was not quite an explanation for everything that he was – and he’d been right. Senne was one-quarter vampire on his father’s side, and he had a strong craving for blood, although he tried not to hunt hapless human prey if he could help it. Once, when they’d been in the Arctic trying to round up a group of murderous _draugr_ who’d been luring polar bears to their untimely deaths, Senne, bereft of blood for three days straight, had almost gone mad for need.

“Drain a polar bear, for Christ’s sake,” Sander had yelled in vexation, after the sixth time Senne had snapped at him in an hour.

His Elder had looked at him as though he’d never seen a creature so stupid.

“I can’t fucking do that, Driesen, what kind of monster do you think I am? We’re here to _rescue them_ , not contribute to population loss. Jesus.”

Sander had rolled his eyes so hard blood had splashed into his dark eyebrows.

“First of all, you’re not a monster, you’re a fucking _demon_. Second of all, if you take one big drink from an animal that size, it won’t even faze them. You might have a rogue vamp polar bear running around, but sometimes you have to risk it for the biscuit, you know what I’m saying?”

Senne had examined him with such intensity that Sander had felt pinned to the ground; when he’d realized what Senne was looking at his stomach had twisted strangely.

“Sander.”

“Yeah.”

Slowly, Senne had moved closer; they were in an alcove of one of the polar bear caverns staking out the _draugr_ leader, a notorious night-hunter. Cold couldn’t affect demons but it was still unpleasant to be hit with nonstop torrents of sleet and snow, so they’d taken shelter while they waited for it to appear.

“You have,” said Senne, and his voice was trembling, “blood.”

“Yeah,” said Sander hoarsely, aware for the first time in months of the liquid seeping steadily from his eyes. “I do.”

Abruptly it was impossibly warm in the space between them; Senne blinked and shook his head and shoved back, feral expression dissipating just slightly.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. That’s – I shouldn’t ask you for that.”

“No,” said Sander, and he reached out and pulled Senne in by the front of his shirt. “It’s fine. Drink. If it makes you stop being a fuckhead, I’m here for it.”

Many demons had all black or all red or all white eyes; others had vampiric wolf teeth; yet others had webbed fingers or retractable claws or forked tongues. From what both he and Senne had deduced, Sander was the only one of his kind whose external Trait was to constantly cry blood. He suspected it was because his Maker was part vampire.

Now Sander watched Senne licking blood from his fingers, thinking of winged golden beings and tiny space-less caves and the gentle hunger with which Senne had held Sander’s head as he’d lapped the blood from his face, and waited for his Elder to elaborate. But before he could, Britt spoke up again.

“An angel at Fight Night,” she said haughtily, “is something that _I_ won’t believe until _I_ see it.”

“Suit yourself,” said Senne, amused. “But you might not know what you’re looking at even if you do see one. They can blend in very well, you know.”

*

“This is insane,” said Robbe, for at least the fourth time in half an hour.

“Robbe, _shut up_ ,” hissed Jens, clamping one of his gigantic hands around Robbe’s wrist as they ducked past a group of weres skulking in the middle of the alleyway. “Your Shield isn’t a damn cone of silence, you know.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” said Robbe, but he was grinning as he turned his head to gawk after the weres. “I’ve never actually seen one of them in real life before.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not missing anything,” said Jens under his breath. “It’s weird that they’re here right now. Weres normally don’t come out for a half-moon.”

Rarely were days in Purgatory sunny for longer than ten minutes at a time, but each night the sky cleared for the moody moon and its surrounding speckled stars. Robbe never ceased to be grateful for the view; in life he had been a star-chaser, often climbing to the roof of his flatshare to watch the galaxies above him gleam, and he wasn’t sure he would have been able to get behind an afterlife without constellations.

“It’s Drinking Night,” he said, dismissive, his focus switching gears for every new oddity in sight. They’d only been in the LP for ten minutes and he’d already seen a night-dragon and two banshees; however, Eurydice, to Jens’s great disappointment, was nowhere to be found. “Everyone comes out for that.”

“I guess,” said Jens. His voice was mistrustful. “Have you seen enough yet?"

“Are you kidding?” Robbe’s giddiness was in blatant disparity with Jens’s wary gloom. “We haven’t even made it to the city center!”

Lesser Purgatory was both exactly what he had expected and nothing at all like the intricate labyrinth his imagination had spun for him. The darkness everywhere was on-brand, as were the run-down, shoddy storefronts surrounding them on both sides, and the humans dwelling here were grimmer by far than the ones who carried out fairly normal existences in Greater Purgatory. If Robbe had tried to pick one word to describe them, it would have been _sooty_ ; their skin was grey and ashen, their eyes and hair and teeth dulled to muted shadows of the luster they had held in life, and none of them looked as though they had smiled in decades. Most of them, Robbe thought with a shiver, probably hadn’t.

“They look awful,” he whispered to Jens as they danced their meticulous way through the crowd.

“Of course they do,” said Jens. “Lesser Purgatory is a _hovel_.”

Robbe watched a child as filthy as a chimney-sweep walking past them with her eyes down, gray shawl swathed tightly around her head, and found his chest warming with sympathy. “Can they leave?”

“When they do their penance,” said Jens, grim. “Then they’ll either be made into angels or demons or reincarnated to another universe, depending.”

“On what?”

“Lots of things,” said Jens. “I’ll tell you about it when we’re not supposed to be _fucking quiet_.”

“You’re incredibly foul-mouthed for a high-tier angel,” said Robbe, but he was messing, and when Jens jabbed him pointedly in the ribs it was without venom.

“Can it, Fledgling.”

Robbe was about to open his mouth to respond – because he _never_ let Jens get the last word if he could help it – when they rounded a corner smack into the wretched grandeur of the city center, and he was momentarily stripped of the power of speech.

Everything was rendered in different shades of what could only be described as _bleak_ , grays and blacks and whites, as heavily morose as the city’s uniform inhabitants. Buildings seemed sharper here, turrets that ended in rough, angled points, windows like frowning eyes, fence posts that thrust aggressively skyward. From the rooftops, grimacing stone gargoyles observed wordlessly; Robbe had heard tales that they were the works of the Gorgons themselves and he wouldn’t have been surprised to find that it was more than a rumor. One of the High Demons, Raksha, who was immune to the Gorgons’ ability to turn prey to stone, was responsible for the architectural upkeep of Lesser Purgatory’s city center. She was enjoying quite a scandalous affair with Medusa and was known to incorporate elements of her favorites into her work; it was alleged that when she finished with a lover she killed them and immortalized parts of their bodies within the designs of her buildings.

Robbe wasn’t quite so positive about the truth behind that one. At any rate Medusa wouldn’t allow that to happen to _her_.

Despite the titanic relief of the open sky the air seemed dimmer, thicker, difficult to keep comfortably in one’s lungs. The faces around them were rent with resigned misery: slit eyes, slash-mouths, loud in their silent warnings to _stay away_. No one seemed to want to attract any more attention than was necessary and Robbe was suddenly glad for the shield; without it, he and Jens, gold and glittering, would have drawn eyes for miles.

As it stood the most noticeable thing about the city center by far was the fountain positioned directly in the middle of the square. A gigantic granite statue of Tantalus, morbid-beautiful in its careful, clever attention to detail, stood beside a stone apple tree amidst a massive basin of water. One arm extended upward towards the lowest branch of the tree and around him black water flowed steadily from multiple faucets into the pool of water at his feet. True to mythology, both the branch and the water seemed close enough to touch, but Tantalus was damned to deprivation for eternity, within sight and smell and feel of both food and water but denied access to both. The expression of helpless longing on his face was _wrenching;_ Robbe could not yank his gaze away.

“This is _dismal_ ,” he hissed under his breath, delighted.

“Don’t sound so excited, Ijzermans, hell,” said Jens. “You’re an angel. Act like it.”

Robbe ignored him. “I’ve only been an angel for five years, Jens, come on. Even you have to admit this is dope.”

Jens regarded him with one feathered eyebrow arched so high it blended with the fall of his thick dark fringe. “Your enthusiasm is endearing. It is interesting, kid, I’ll give you that, but the way it _feels_ here, you know? The collective misery is contagious after a while.”

Robbe could see his point, but he was high on novelty and the gloom couldn’t touch him. “Not tonight, Jens. Not tonight.”

And indeed, the further they pressed into the square, the more the atmosphere seemed to change: the silence had swelled into a low roaring chatter, not of an unpleasant tone. Most beings seemed to be headed towards a knobby, narrow little street directly parallel to the main road, and as Jens squinted after them his face transformed abruptly from fixed concentration to understanding.

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” Robbe was immediately on alert.

“I think I know why the weres were out.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Jens, and Robbe was astonished to find that he was beaming, “it’s fucking Fight Night.”

*

Fight Night, among fledgling angels, was something of a legend.

Everyone had something to say about it; no one ever managed to get any of the facts straight. Some said it was like an underground boxing league between creatures of similar size and mettle; others said it was more of a fight-to-the-death, gladiator situation; yet others said it wasn’t a _real_ thing and anyone who believed in it was a dolt. Robbe had chosen to endure on the side of the skeptics just to remain sane because in truth he was _wild_ to know about it.

“I thought that was just a myth.”

“It’s certainly not,” said Jens, looking affronted. Musingly, almost to himself, he added, “that explains where Eurydice was going.”

“To you, maybe,” said Robbe, pouting. Sometimes this low-handed tactic worked wonders on Jens’s willingness to share and tonight seemed to be one of those nights because he said:

“Do you want me to explain or do you want to see it for yourself?”

Ten minutes later, having successfully trailed the crowd surge, they were shoving their way through the door of a dingy sort of nightclub, neon sign overhead reading _EXITIUM_ , smaller sign beneath proclaiming in words so unremarkable it was easy to miss them: _FIGHT NIGHT TODAY_. Robbe was still smirking at the irony of this when Jens pulled him in close and hissed under his breath.

“Keep your guard up. Make sure you’re reinforcing the Shield at all times. I’ll help you as much as I can, but you need to remember that there are things in the LP that can sense us, even if they can’t see us.”

“Noted,” said Robbe, but his brain was fully occupied with the possibilities of what he might see that night, and the urgency in Jens’s tone didn’t translate. As they dodged creatures and humans alike to make their way into the center of the building Robbe’s senses went into defcon five: the air throbbed with a bass so low it sawed pleasantly within his golden bloodstream, chatter so mixed and strange he could not pick up a single word in a single language, sights so unusual he kept blinking to confirm reality. To his left was a sphinx chatting with a gryphon, to his right a group of shadow-fae, directly in front of him a lone wendigo. He had never seen so many harpies in his afterlife and he was about to say as much to Jens when he looked up and saw the makeshift arena, positioned in the back left of the room.

“That’s where the fighting happens?”

“Yeah,” said Jens, with a great deal of satisfaction. “And tonight it’s Gorgons.”

*

Nestled privately in the very back of the club, blocked from excess noise and aggravation and distraction, Sander felt the air shift.

The alteration was minimal - similar to the way atmospheric pressure adapts a slight moist heaviness in those hesitant slow moments before a storm - but it was definite, and his hackles reared instantly. Senne saw the change on his face and set his glass on the tabletop; by now he was wholly in tune with his Fledgling’s intricacies and he knew when Sander was Sensing.

“Driesen,” he said, “what?”

“I don’t know,” said Sander, flexing his fist against the strike of chill that thrashed down his spine, automatic. “Something powerful.”

“Good or bad?” Britt was distracted, searching the crowd; her bruja friend was supposed to be joining them but it was getting closer to First Blood and neither hide nor hair had been seen of her yet. If any of the Higher species were participating in Fight Night, they wouldn’t be featured in the arena until much later, but the early rounds were always good and bloody when the draw contained Gorgons and Furies.

“Depends on your parameters,” said Sander, and he grinned. Senne relaxed; if he could smile, they weren’t in immediate danger.

“Tell me when you see it.”

“I don’t know if I CAN see it,” said Sander abruptly, and he didn’t understand why but he was certain that whatever it was that had caused the air to rearrange itself would not be easily visible.

Senne’s eyebrows bridged marginally.

“Now _that_ is unusual.”

“I know,” said Sander, restless. He swallowed the last mouthful of his drink, rose to his feet with a metallic clang. Something was always clinking on his body; he never went anywhere without excess adornment. “I’m going to get more alcohol before this shit gets started.”

“Get me a refill,” said Senne, scrutinizing him.

“Ram or elk, Dracula?”

“Ram.”

“Cheers,” said Sander, before he turned to maneuver his way through the melee to the bar. When he was out of eyesight of the table he allowed his guard to relax slightly; he’d excused himself because he was unsettled and he didn’t like showing vulnerability, especially not in front of Senne. But the fact remained that Sander’s most powerful gifts were to Sense and See, and when the former was not bolstered by the latter, he could only assume that whatever was concealing itself wielded the kind of power on a level that he had not yet dealt with.

He pressed up to the bar, hailed the sullen pixie standing behind it, ordered something strong for himself and stronger for Senne (because, according to him, blood was much more satisfying when it was spiked with alcohol). Leaned against the countertop and wrecked the cuticle of his thumb with his teeth until black blood emerged over the surface of his skin; when he pulled his hand away the pierce-wound disappeared smoothly. He was halfway back to the table with two heavy mugs in hand, focused on balancing them both so no liquid spilled over the edge, when he looked automatically over to his left and stopped flat.

The air in Exitium was always smoke-thick and sooty, reduced, like a living version of a grainy vintage photograph. Never before had Sander seen color appear within the place aside from gray and red and sepia tones; it had been curated to reflect the dismal nature of Lesser Purgatory, and it did its job effectively.

That was why it was so disquieting to see the empty space directly to the left of one of the dim overhead lights glimmering with luminescent gold.

Sander bit at the ring hooked through his lower lip, brow scrunched as he stared at the abnormal patch of glittery air. For all intents and purposes the area seemed quite devoid of occupancy, but the longer Sander stood watching it, the more apparent it became that the crowd was – whether consciously or not– _avoiding_ that little place. He scrutinized the faces of the beings that came closest to it, did a quick survey of the area to see if anyone else seemed to notice the gold patch, but no one even glanced in that direction. Whatever it was, it was clear that only he could see it.

Whatever it was, he knew, was the thing that had caused the air to change.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and support - I hope you like the next chapter :)

“Hey! Sander!”

Sander’s trance was momentarily shattered; he turned his head and there beside him was Noor, Britt’s bruja friend. She was tiny but she was terrifying; every part of her looked like it had teeth. Sander thought that this was maybe not too far from the truth. He greeted her with that fiendish slice of a half smile, leaned down so they could kiss at the air beside each other’s cheeks.

“What’s up, Noor.”

“Oh, you know. Just spent the day inventing a counter-hex from scratch,” said Noor, all-suffering as she crossed her yellow eyes. “Moyo pissed some warlock off when he kept beating him at cards the other night, so the asshole cursed him. He’s been walking around with a thundercloud over his head for a day and a half. Literally. Soaked the bed through twice.”

Sander laughed out loud, but there was a piece of his mind still idly circling around the peculiar golden haze, attached, curious. “Better than any _other_ reason for him to have soaked the bed.”

“Yes, well,” said Noor, and she smirked. “Annoying nonetheless. Where’s the crew sitting?”

Sander inclined his head to the back left, where he could dimly make out their little booth. “Corner over there. Listen, Noor, will you take this to Senne? I’m gonna go say hi to one of my friends really quick.”

“Of course,” said Noor, accepting the mug he handed her. “See you in a minute?”

“Yes,” said Sander, and he waited until she had turned to wend her graceful way through tables and creatures back to the group before he re-focused his attention back onto the shining mist.

It had moved; it was now closer to the stage, and if Sander squinted he thought he could see shadows moving within the shimmer. Fully concentrated now, he began pacing measuredly towards it, sipping habitually at his drink as he did so; the crowd near the arena was thickening but still that small space remained uninhabited. In his chest Sander could feel the call of it, the siren of power that he could not ignore, and he wanted so badly to know what was within the mist that he forgot about caution. Before he’d even realized what he was doing he was inches from where the air became saturated with glinting medal-gold and he was mesmerized.

“What are you,” he murmured, and as though they were listening to him the thousands and thousands of glitter-particles inside the fog seemed to freeze.

*

Within the refuge of the Shield, Jens seized Robbe’s forearm.

Robbe, who mentally was lightyears away observing the melting pot of dark supernatural beings surrounding them, twisted his head, halfway to speaking before Jens slapped a warm frantic hand over his mouth.

 _Don’t talk,_ rang out in his mind. _Turn around_. _Slowly, for hell’s sake._

On an ordinary occasion, Robbe would have scolded Jens for using telepathy, but the urgency in his Elder’s thoughts and the unusual situation within which they found themselves that night gave him pause. He did as Jens asked, suddenly streaked through with adrenaline at the thought of what he might discover, and found himself face-to-face with an extravagant creature with alabaster skin to match his white-blonde hair and violent cardinal-red blood trickling from both eyes.

He was standing directly in front of Robbe and Jens, a concentrated expression on his face, licking absently at the ring spiked through his lower lip. He seemed thoroughly unbothered by the fact that his eyes were bleeding; Robbe had just enough time to wonder if that was an everyday sort of thing for him when Jens was thinking out loud again.

 _It can see the Shield_.

 _That’s impossible_ , Robbe thought back, scornful, wondering distractedly why Jens had referred to the being as _it_ and not _he_. _Nothing can see the Shield_.

 _Some things can_.

_Like what?_

Jens looked sideways at him and his face was grave.

 _Every inhuman creature has an ability_ , he thought. _Opposite creatures often have opposite abilities. So, tell me, little one. What’s the opposite of Shielding?_

 _Sensing_ , thought Robbe, his brain sprinting, whirring. _Maybe Seeing._

 _Yes_ , thought Jens, and his grip around Robbe’s wrist tightened. _And what are you?_

 _An angel_ , thought Robbe, and as he looked back at the ethereal being in front of him recognition slammed into him like the car that had ended his human life.

_What’s the opposite of an angel?_

Robbe swallowed. He had never seen one up close before, but the explanation made perfect sense: bloody eyes, corpse-white skin, black everywhere.

 _A demon_.

*

Sander was half a second from stretching out a hand to twist his fingers through the sunshine air, see if it pushed back like the darkness in hell had shoved at him when he’d first been Changed, but just like that Senne was beside him, towering, calm as he always was, stern.

“What are you doing, Driesen?”

“I found it,” said Sander dreamily, still tranced-out. “I found the thing that I’m Sensing.”

Senne furrowed his brow. “What? Where?”

“There,” said Sander, vaguely, and he pointed. In doing so his fingertip barely brushed the outer perimeter of the mist and static crackled on his skin; all he wanted to do was step forward into it, see if it enveloped him, gilded him, too.

“I don’t see anything,” said Senne, but then he looked again and his expression changed. “Wait. This empty space?”

“It’s not empty,” said Sander. “There’s something there. The air is golden, Senne.”

Senne’s eyes darted from Sander’s eyes to the emptiness in front of them and something slammed down over his face like a sliding door. He grabbed Sander’s shoulder.

“We need to get away from this,” he hissed, “right now.”

In a dimmed sort of way Sander understood that he should hearken to Senne’s tone, his body language, his words, but it was not in his nature to feel fear; he had seen the worst, lived through the darkest of times, and he’d emerged on the other side as a fucking _demon._ The fact that Senne - a much older and more important demon than he - was expressing distress didn’t do as much as it should have to turn him back, and again he found himself warring the urge to bridge the gap.

Inside the Shield, Jens correctly interpreted Sander’s facial expression and made a decision.

_Robbe. Enforce the Shield._

Robbe wrested his gaze from the blonde demon’s face. Enforcement required a brutal amount of strength and one hundred percent of his concentration, something he was not currently willing to give: he wanted nothing more than to study the creature before him, learn him, understand what _demon_ looked like in corporeal form instead of in fantasy. _But -_

_Do it. It’s going to try to reach in. I’ll help you._

Robbe hesitated and

outside the Shield Sander reached forward and

Jens stepped behind Robbe and pressed his torso flush to Robbe’s back and

just as Sander’s hand met the space where the air turned light Robbe pulled from Jens’s strength and with a visceral, audible growl of effort transformed the Shield from mist to _steel_.

Both Sander and Senne heard the noise he made; Sander’s palm met flat resistance and he recoiled in sharp shock. Senne grabbed him by the collar, yanked him back, and Sander’s stomach went hot with shame and recognition.

“ _Sander_ ,” growled Senne in his ear, “what in fuck’s sake are you doing? Do you _want_ the wrath of God to come down upon you? Get the fuck back.”

“What - “ Sander’s palm was tingling. “The wrath of - Senne, is that an _angel_?”

“Yes,” hissed Senne, as he hauled him away. “Yes, you idiot, what did you _think_ a pocket of golden air in Lesser Purgatory would be? Are you hurt?”

“No,” said Sander, but he couldn’t stop looking stupefied over his shoulder back at the obviously marked space. “I’m fine. It didn’t - Senne, it didn’t seem like it was _bad._ ”

“Driesen,” said Senne in total exasperation, “ _we’re_ bad. Angels are the literal polar opposite of everything we are. We’re not supposed to _touch_ them. They aren’t for our kind.”

“But why?” Sander was not clear of mind. “Who the fuck says? Isn’t all that stuff about traditional human religion bullshit anyway?”

“Yes,” said Senne, hand clenching at the back of Sander’s neck, silver chains tangling in his fingers, “but that doesn’t change the hierarchy. They are light, we are dark. We protect the low realms, they protect the high. We rule the things that humans consider _sin_ and they rule the things that humans consider _virtue_. We are not meant to mix with them. They think they’re superior to us.”

He stopped, pushed Sander back against the raised side of the stage, leaned in and licked a droplet of blood from Sander’s cheekbone. It was the one thing he knew to do that would bring Sander back to himself and sure enough his Fledgling’s scarlet eyes went immediately from daydream-distant to smack-awake.

“Senne, I’m sorry,” he said, low. “You’re right. We’re not meant for them.”

“It’s fine,” said Senne. His voice was gentle. “Angels can have quite the effect on someone who’s never seen them before, and for you to be able to Sense a Shield...that’s big stuff, Driesen.”

A luxuriant, lethal smirk cut its slow track across Sander’s mouth. “I have a good teacher.”

“Yeah, well,” said Senne, haughty. He searched Sander’s sharp beautiful face, shoved back against the urge to drink from his Fledgling’s bloodsource again, but Sander read his expression and swiped a teardrop of red from under his eye. Lifted his finger to Senne’s mouth and watched with satisfaction as his Maker sucked his skin clean, sighed raggedly, almost a groan.

“I’ll never understand why you don’t drink from humans more often,” said Sander, dripping with assurance. “Real blood is what does it for you.”

“Animal blood does what it _needs_ to do,” said Senne. His violet eyes were feral. “Come on. Forget angels, okay? You had your introduction, now you need to focus on what’s really important.”

“Like watching you get turned on drinking from me?”

“Fuck yourself,” said Senne, eyes flashing, but it was half amusement. “First Blood is about to happen, and Eurydice is on.”

*

Robbe felt Jens grasp him around the waist, lift him bodily away from the stage into a more protected corner of the club, diving into shadows. He was shivering with the effort it had taken to throw up an Enforcement without proper preparation, teeth gritted hands fisted at his sides, and when Jens slid down against the side wall and pulled Robbe back between his legs he did not resist.

“Hey,” Jens crooned, voice a hot brush of air at Robbe’s ear, “come on, Robbe, you’re fine, I’ve got you. You were a fucking champion, kid. That was incredible.”

It wasn’t often that Jens called him by his first name and it pulled Robbe minimally back to himself; he managed to unclench his fists to clamp them on Jens’s knees, and his Elder slid hands under Robbe’s elbows so he could reach up and scratch through Robbe’s bedlam curls. His arms were so long that even from such an unnatural angle he could reach the crown of Robbe’s head with ease.

“I,” choked Robbe, tripping over the force of his own breath as he tried to re-center, all of him aware of the warmth of Jens’s body crowded against his own, “need a fucking drink.”

“Okay,” said Jens, amused. “I can make us look ordinary enough to pass as vampires or something for a little while if you want a break.”

“The irony of that sentence,” said Robbe, and Jens chuckled.

“Say the word.”

“Give me, like. Five minutes.” Robbe’s entire body felt like a wet towel, wrung for every last drop of water before being draped out to dry. “Enforcements without Charge take everything I’ve got, even with your help.”

“I know,” said Jens, and he sounded guilty. “I should have just Disguised us before we entered the LP so you wouldn’t have had to work so hard. But it’s Drinking Night AND Fight Night in one go and I thought the Shield would be safer.”

“It probably is,” said Robbe, sighing; he let his fluffy head tumble back onto Jens’s shoulder and nestled automatically. “But I mean, fuck it, right? At least two demons already know we’re here. If you Disguise us the whole corporeal mist giveaway disappears, and they have no idea we were even involved with it in the first place. Problem solved.”

“Ordinarily I’d say yeah,” said Jens, “but if that demon can Sense, then my Disguise won’t fully hide you from it. You get close, and it will know.”

Robbe looked back at him. Jens’s face was impossibly close and impossibly magnificent; Robbe could smell the alcohol he’d drunk in Greater Purgatory wafting from his soft, intermittent breath.

“Then I won’t get close.”

*

When Robbe had recharged enough to move Jens pulled them into a bathroom stall to work his magic; Robbe had always loved watching him while he was Casting, and tonight was no different. Jens was an absolute scholar at trickery and concealment, thought-play, stealth; he could be hovering a hairsbreadth from someone’s back and they wouldn’t have an inkling that he was there until he announced himself. Now he stood in front of the mirror and drew fingertip lines across his own face, dulling the shimmer of his skin to matte cream, darkening his hair and sharpening the edges of his wolf teeth until they passed easily as fangs. When he’d completed his own Disguise he performed the same ritual on Robbe, who could have cried with the relief that flooded upon taking his guard down: Shielding, after a while, became overwhelming.

“Next time we come to the LP,” said Robbe as he scrutinized himself in the mirror, “you’re doing this to begin with.”

“To be fair,” said Jens, just before he snapped his fingers and their reflections vanished from the mercurial surface before them. “You didn’t give me a lot of warning.”

When they re-emerged into the club the lights had blackened even further and both the tempo and the volume of the music had increased; the crowd seemed denser than it had moments before, but Robbe deduced that this was probably because they no longer had the luxury of the Shield to afford them a suitable berth. It was strange to realize that they were drawing stares now; even Disguised as vampires, both Robbe and Jens were preternaturally lovely. Jens certainly wielded the power to diminish their appearances, but vanity was his fatal flaw, and he almost never did.

“Beauty isn’t that unusual in our world,” he defended himself, when Robbe laughed at him about it. “Why should I try to hide that? Angels aren’t the only pretty things that exist in the Afterlife.”

Apparently, Robbe thought absently now as they made a space for themselves at the bar, demons could be pretty, too.

He tried not to look around. Attracting extra attention was likely to prove catastrophic, especially if Jens was correct and the blood-eyed demon could still Sense their presence. But it turned out that Robbe didn’t need to worry about unintentionally inviting anyone’s lingering attention – at least not for the time being – because at the exact moment the bored pixie bartender handed Jens and Robbe their drinks, Exitium exploded like an atomic bomb into ruckus noise.

“Here we go,” said Jens, and in the excitement of his tone Robbe could find balance between his insistence that Lesser Purgatory was nothing to write home about and the streak of interest that had belted through his eyes as they’d been discussing it. Robbe’s eyes found the stage; it had been empty not half a second before, but directly in its center now stood a tall, straight-spined man dressed as though he was fully prepared to lead a runway show for nineties-era Versace. His posture was impeccable and his eyes were lined thickly with sharp silver and kohl and he was one of the most luridly fascinating things Robbe had ever seen.

“Is that – ”

“Milan,” said Jens, with some fondness. “He’s half-sylph, half-elf, and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to Lower Purgatory.”

Onstage, the mesmerizing hybrid creature with the (extremely appropriate) name of an Italian city began to speak.

“I don’t think,” he said, in the tone of someone who _fully_ understood that simply raising the volume of one’s voice was not the best way to command attention, “ _any_ of you filthy creatures are ready for this shit.”

And as the responding clamor of the crowd shrieked to a sudden crescendo, Robbe looked sideways at Jens and started to grin.

“It’s been a long time,” said Milan, smirking, clearly enjoying the collective enthrallment of the entire population of Exitium, “a _very_ long time, I think. Since we’ve had Furies participating in Fight Night. But, theydies and gentlethem, hags and trolls, demons and _dare_ I presume angels – ”

Robbe froze but Jens grinned; hissed sideways,

“He has no clue, he’s just being dramatic.”

“ – it’s been an even _longer_ time since any of our lovely serpent-haired sisters have thrown their names into the pool.”

From the way the crowd rocked and screamed in response to his words Robbe understood that this was a gigantic occasion; again he looked to Jens for explanation but his Elder was already utilizing his telepathy to explain.

 _Gorgon fights are_ vicious _. No one here can die, obviously, but they’re the most brutal of all creatures to participate in Fight Night. Furies are nearly as bad, that’s why it’s so crazy in here tonight, everyone wants a piece of the carnage._

 _Even you_. Robbe was enjoying how much Jens was enjoying himself.

_Even me. You picked a good night to force my hand._

Robbe smiled.

_So what happens to the losers, then? Since they can’t die?_

Jens licked at the new sharpness of his wolf teeth, twisted his mouth before he replied.

“They tap out,” he said out loud. “They get hurt badly, and they go somewhere to lick their wounds until they get a chance for redemption at next Fight Night. And the winner…the winner gets clout.”

Robbe searched his Elder’s face, thinking absently that the status of a Fight Night victory in the LP must equate to something like respect or fear or reverence, but then he stopped thinking at all because everything around them suddenly depleted into quiet and stillness and _dark,_ the entire arena _thrumming_ with ravenous anticipation. It felt like standing at the edge of a sheer cliff with toes pressed over the side and nothing to prevent the fall and Robbe was _afire_ for it. He had no idea what was going to happen but he had never been more ready for anything in his entire existence.

He waited.

And then, when the hush was beginning to become maddeningly loud in the way that only unmitigated silence can manage, from the back corner of the stage where a curtained side entrance separated the patrons from the staff-only area of the club, there arose a steady, insidious hiss.

“Eurydice,” sang Milan, “please step into the light.”

And from out of the darkness emerged something darker.

*

“She’s perfect,” whispered Noor, and Senne and Sander grinned at each other.

Eurydice wasn’t what either one of them would have described as _perfect_ – demons didn’t really believe in the word, used it as a taunt or derogatory term against the Son of God – but she was certainly commanding. One of the tallest Gorgons, her skin was a shade of mottled yellow-green akin to a fresh bruise, a direct clash with the garish coral pink of her pit vipers, and when she curled her upper lip in acknowledgement of the crowd jagged grey teeth showed. For a lesser Gorgon, she was positively terrifying.

“She could win this tournament,” said Senne casually, “if Medusa doesn’t show.”

“No way Raksha would let her fight,” said Noor, dismissing him. “She likes to keep her toys in pristine condition, and Medusa’s not exactly a looker to begin with.”

“Maybe Raksha has a newfound battle-scar kink,” said Sander. He was already nearly finished with his second drink; his close encounter with the unidentified angel had shaken him, and he didn’t know what to do to still his head but to slow his thought process with alcohol. It never worked as well as it had in his human body – demonic systems were designed to flush toxins much more effectively – but it was always enough to blunt the edges.

“I’d kill to see Medusa and Eurydice,” said Britt. “She’s the only lesser Gorgon that would stand a chance against any of the holy trinity. She doesn’t give a fuck.”

“She beat Stheno once,” said Senne, “ages ago. I was there, it was a madhouse. She lost a snake, but Stheno lost two, and the way she was screaming afterward…the stuff of nightmares.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” said Sander, his gaze tracking the kaleidoscopic gloom on the other half of the stage. “Nemesis is no pushover.”

And as though he had spoken her into existence she came forth.

Where Eurydice was furious color, constant movement and sound, Nemesis contradicted her in darkness and calm and silence. Wraithlike she strode slow and resolute across the stage, icicle eyes pinned fearless to Eurydice’s countenance, stating intent with every second she did not look away. Sander appreciated her attitude; if he’d have been placing bets that night he’d have staked on her with confidence. Eurydice liked to put on a show but Nemesis was unassuming in her presentation and somehow that felt more to him like victory. He’d never seen her fight, but he’d heard tales of her ruthlessness, and he was ready to witness it for himself.

Milan between them looked fully undaunted.

“My darling, my dear,” he said, casual like he was announcing the contestants of a beauty pageant and not addressing a deity and a Gorgon, “need I remind you of the rules?”

When Nemesis spoke it was like thunder cracking in the clouds. Her eyes never drifted from Eurydice’s face.

“I don’t forget.”

Eurydice jeered; her snakes were going mad for bloodlust.

“Nor I.”

“Excellent,” said Milan, and for the first time all night wicked interest sparked in his wide cunning eyes. “Then I’ll make myself scarce and let you two have at it.”

In a blink he had vanished; Sander spotted him instantly when he reappeared in the rafters above their heads, a smudge of yellow, overseeing restlessly from afar. Full-blooded sylphs commanded powerful magic of their own, but Milan’s mother had been a sea-elf, and with all that combined force channeling through him he was one of the most formidable beings in the LP; Sander could Sense him coming from miles away. Though Milan was not malicious by nature, he was known for ruining those who crossed him; there was a reason he had been appointed as head referee of Fight Night. If things got out of hand, he could regain control of the situation with one snap of his fingers, no droplet of sweat forming on his brow, he might have been a High Deity for the negligible effort he put forth to execute staggering feats of sorcery.

There was a beat in which Eurydice and Nemesis sized each other up; Nemesis might not have had snakes for hair but she did have literal talons and she unsheathed them now, flexing her fingers to shake them out. The pit vipers haloing Eurydice’s head reared cautiously, stretching to full length, glorious in their lethality, and when the first one struck it all became a muddle of vivid color and glinting steel. In immediate, urgent response, the crowd howled with cruel delight; Fight Night elicited the worst from Morals and Immorals both, and the presence of pitiless Gorgons in the melee only served to exacerbate their savagery.

From such a secluded corner it was impossible to see what was going on and without a thought for decorum Sander rose, placed one foot atop the table, hauled himself up so he could separate the whirling dervish of catastrophic movement. Ordinarily Senne would have chided him for standing on furniture – he could be gallingly lawful for a high-tier demon – but he was as absorbed in the battle as the rest of them and either didn’t notice or didn’t give a shit. Through the spotlit air onstage dark green liquid spurted and the crowd gave a surging howl of glee; Nemesis had drawn first blood.

Sander pushed up the sleeves of his jacket, denim dyed dark as the liner smudged around his eyes, gaze roaming unconsciously around the opposite side of the arena. He was looking, he knew, for the golden haze, but to his mild annoyance it was nowhere to be seen. He was wondering abstractedly if the angels had taken their leave from Exitium when the path of his gaze collided with a russet-haired being leaning up against the bar, and Sander forgot to think about anything else at all.

The being – who by all accounts could have passed for an exceptionally flawless member of the human species – was wearing a simple red crewneck and jeans, fringe tumbling sideways into his gigantic eyes as he observed the onstage kerfuffle, hypnotized. Corpse-pale skin and the fangs that spiked under his top lip suggested that he was a vampire, but Sander was excellent at guessing classifications, and that didn’t feel right at all. He was lithe and small and imperious, every bit of him exuding confidence as he sipped from the chalice in his hand, and never before in his existence had Sander been witness to such a striking creature as this. Reflexively he raised an arm to card his fingers back through his hair and as he did the boy’s intense gaze shifted away from the melee straight into Sander’s eyes.

Above them, unseen, unnoticed by everything else in the room, the sky shook itself out. In Sander’s ears a sudden drone whined and his stomach gave a lurching skydive swoop and for half a moment he mislaid the breath that he sometimes could not believe he still had. Again that heightened awareness slashed through him; again, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The boy’s eyes were the strangest shade of gold, gold, gold, and there was something about him – something that Sander wanted to name but could not. He couldn’t tell if he was Sensing or reacting to the clear heat that kindled between them but he felt like he’d gone up in flames.

Unflinchingly the boy stared, face inscrutable and stone-frozen and brazen, as unafraid as Nemesis regarding Eurydice. His absolute lack of intimidation was not something Sander was accustomed to – as a human, he’d been revered for his beauty; as a mid-tier demon, let alone one who _bled constantly from both eyes_ , his status commanded a great deal of automatic respect. In severe contrast to that fawning, fear-tinged admiration, however, this boy was observing him in the unaffected manner that one might use to watch a train pass by.

The unfamiliar feeling of being rendered _ordinary_ by the nature of someone’s attention riled something long dormant in Sander’s chest. He could not equate the mildness in the boy’s eyes with the length of his gaze or the voltage that screamed hot through Sander’s skin; something was taking place here, but he didn’t have an inkling as to what it was. Onstage black and green blood was spraying with abandon now, both Eurydice and Nemesis roaring with vexed effort, but the combat felt planets away and all of Sander’s concentration was fixed upon bridging the space between himself and this unidentified splendid ethereal creature and proving that there was not a commonplace thing about him.

The boy was the first to cut eye contact, his attention snagged by the being beside him, a statuesque individual of equally astonishing beauty with skin only slightly less pale than his companion’s. Such a milky color looked strange against the sable of his hair and though he, too, showed fangs when he smiled, the errant, persistant thought that neither member of this enigmatic pair were vampires strayed again through Sander’s mind. He forced his focus back to the scuffle onstage; Nemesis had managed to behead one of Eurydice’s pit vipers and it looked as though his initial instinct to crown her as victor had been right.

Senne grabbed Sander’s ankle; apparently he had noticed his Fledgling’s relocation to the tabletop after all. He shouted over the din:

“How’s the view up there?”

Sander grinned down at him.

“Top-notch. Join me?”

And to Sander’s astonishment, Senne did, skipping lithely from the booth to stand beside him, moon-eyed and chill. He’d gone through three goblets of blood that night and this combined with the alcohol had made him loose at the limbs, undone the quick tension that lurked permanently just between his brows. Sander was positively delighted.

“You fucking rulebreaker.”

“This? You should have seen me in my Fledgling days,” said Senne, and when he beamed Sander saw where his teeth had stained cerise with ram-blood. He roped an arm around Sander’s shoulders, knocked the side of his head gently against Sander’s own, and the warmth that flooded the younger demon’s chest was sudden and strong: this was his most cherished being in all the infinite universes. No one had cared for him like Senne since his mother had died, and the knowledge that he was valued again, that someone _worried_ about him, had changed him entirely.

“Yeah? You’d stand on all the tables then, eh?”

“Something like that,” said Senne, chuckling, and Sander was just about to entreat him to elaborate when ahead of them a rough, incensed shriek sliced the air. Nemesis had gone for the jugular again, and Eurydice had just narrowly escaped losing two of her snakes in one fight. The evasive maneuver she’d had to pull to save her viper had forced her off balance and Nemesis used the advantage to slam her to the ground, throw a leg on each side of her waist, pin both of Eurydice’s hands down with her knees as she crooked an elbow over the thrashing Gorgon’s throat. It was a clever, cunning move: in positioning herself just so, Nemesis had ensured that Eurydice’s snakes couldn’t strike where they needed to.

Eurydice screamed again, blind with rage; she hadn’t lost an opening round of Fight Night in her _existence_ , and the crowd could taste her fury. The talons on Nemesis’s free hand were curling and uncurling and her eyes were locked to the viper coiled dead center of Eurydice’s forehead and it was unmistakable what she was insinuating. _Forfeit, or you lose another_.

“Here we fucking go,” whispered Sander, and _all_ of him was back in this, entranced, the not-vampire duo momentarily forgotten. Senne’s fingers tightened at the scruff of his neck; the sound of the crowd had reduced to a hornet hum, bated. So quiet was the club that Nemesis’s voice when she spoke sounded loud as a trumpet.

“Say it.”

Eurydice was vibrating with anger; chest heaving, she struggled, but Nemesis was larger and stronger than her in every sense and without the range of her pit vipers Eurydice’s force was heavily diminished.

“Or what.”

“Or I’ll cut them from your head one by one until there’s nothing left on your scalp but bloody stumps,” said Nemesis calmly, and her talons flashed.

Sander and Senne looked at each other, wide-eyed, brows elevated. Below them Britt and Noor had both risen to their feet and were standing with their hands over their mouths, not blinking, barely breathing, snake-charmed. In the rafters the canary blur that was Milan had increased its tempo of pacing and closure felt imminent. Sander said,

“ _Fuck_ ,”

And his eyes automatically skipped over to search for that faultless enigma of a boy. Both he and his friend were watching the events upon the stage with centered intent, but the second Sander’s gaze came to rest upon his face, the boy glanced back at him as though Sander had shouted a name he didn’t know.

Yet.

“She didn’t come to play,” said Senne seriously, and Sander laughed; when his Elder spoke in modern-isms it never felt natural, but he appreciated Senne’s ability to adapt nonetheless.

Onstage, Eurydice hissed; there were a thousand insults in her eyes but she was nothing if not calculated and Nemesis had proved herself to be ruthless enough and she could not afford to lose another viper. She rolled her thin grey lips together, released a longsuffering sigh, set her teeth.

“Forfeit.”

The noise in the club absolutely _detonated_ ; on the opposite side of the stage, Robbe and Jens were _howling_ , grabbing at each other’s hands wrists shoulders, caught up. Robbe’s face was flush with alcohol and Jens was more animated than Robbe had ever seen him and he couldn’t believe that this was the first time his Elder had ever permitted him to come to Lesser Purgatory.

“You _asshole_ ,” he yelled, “you’ve been keeping me from this!”

Jens grinned, guilty, letting his thin delicate-boned shoulders rise and fall. “It’s an _occasion_ , Robbe. The LP isn’t like this _every_ day. You have to pick the best times to come, and know when to avoid it at all costs.”

“So the first time you take me here, we not only see a Deity take out a Gorgon in ten minutes flat, but a demon almost discovers us and we have to use Shield Enforcement to hide from it,” said Robbe. He was still beaming and he felt the joy all the way in his fingertips. “You realize you’re creating a monster.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Jens, and he slammed back his drink, amused. “I created you once, I can remake you whenever I please. We have time between the next round, you want another?”

“Jens _Stoffels_ ,” said Robbe, dramatic, mock-shocked. “Are you, my unbearably strict Elder, suggesting that I, your reckless Fledgling, participate in a _third round of drinks_ with you tonight?”

(The first time they’d drank together, Robbe had expected to be affected by the alcohol in ways that he had been as a human – lowered inhibition, blurry edges, unsteady feet, word vomit, actual vomit, sudden crushing sadness, _lust_ with a capital L – but instead he’d been filled with an indescribable lightness, a warmth in the hollow of his stomach, closer to what he’d describe as _high_ than _drunk._ Jens had stopped him after one drink, insisted that he needed to get used to the way alcohol affected the angel infrastructure before he went any further, and Robbe had rolled his eyes at him.

“I know you’re my Elder,” he’d said, “but that doesn’t make you my mother.”

Jens had grinned at him, flicked his nose.

“Nah. But it does make me your wise, all-knowing superior, whose advice you should heed at all times because you are a baby angel and therefore still learning. Come on, little one, let’s go.”

Since then he hadn’t been much more relaxed; Robbe had incalculable amounts to learn about the ways of being an angel, and Drinking Night was never something on which they wasted much time. Jens taught him how to decompress in other ways, like swoop-diving through silk-soft clouds at daybreak, chasing an infinite horizon over seas of the most impossible blue color at sunset. There wasn’t much to decompress _about_ , really; angels didn’t experience anxiety like humans did, because everything adapted a different meaning in the Afterlife. When overarching stressors like money and bills and health and mortality were removed from the larger picture, it was incredible how limitless one could feel.)

Jens huffed, rolled his eyes. “I was going to relax _eventually_ , you know. Besides, you really proved yourself with that nuclear catastrophe, especially if Raphael is going easy on you. My little Fledgling is growing up.”

Robbe smacked him. “You’re insufferable.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” said Jens, and he cupped Robbe’s chin in one soft long-fingered hand.

In the center of the arena, Milan had already cleared the blood from the floor with one lofty flick of his hand; Eurydice had vanished, limping away in wounded fury, her dead snake clutched in one shaking palm. Nemesis was slightly breathless but her face was saturated with a forbidding sort of satisfaction, teeth bared as she lifted her chin to stare around at the pulsating crowd, shine in her eyes as she listened to them chanting her name. She was the Goddess of Retribution, the personification of vengeance, and by her very nature she was not used to being adored.

Fortunately for her, on Fight Night, any creature that could best a Gorgon was not adored. They were _idolized_.

Milan held up her clammy hand, arched a perfectly sharp eyebrow, didn’t speak; he knew exactly how to work the crowd, had learned to play them like a dedicated violinist learns to make their instrument sing. Nemesis stood with her chest heaving and her eyes rifling the darkness and then, all of a sudden, she smiled.

As Milan conducted a brief, spirited interview Robbe let Jens lead him by the wrist to the bar, all the while keeping one eye open for the demon who sought him so relentlessly with that glowering red stare. Robbe didn’t think the demon knew what he was, that he was an angel, but his (Robbe refused to refer to him like Jens had, as an _it_ ) interest was brash and unmistakable, and it staggered Robbe to understand that he could not detect the nature of said interest. _I won’t get close_ , he’d said to Jens, but he could not fully lie to himself and say that he wasn’t interested, too. When their eyes had clashed across the room Robbe had never felt anything like the ensuing impact; it was disruptive, shattering, a fault line fissure.

His stomach was still hot from it.

At any rate his vigilance was for nothing. The demon was nowhere within his line of sight; the dark man who had been standing beside him on the tabletop had vanished, too, and the crowd packing Exitium to its core was by now so thick that Robbe could not envision chancing upon either of them again. By the time he and Jens were pressed belly-first into the bar, laughing giddily as they called for their drinks, the entire encounter seemed far enough away that it might have been a reverie. He and Jens got pulled helplessly into a fevered First Blood discussion with a group of phantoms; two were in full support of Nemesis’s victory while the third was bemoaning the loss of Eurydice, whose viciousness had heretofore been unparalleled within the lower hierarchies of the draw. Jens was disputing hotly with the third phantom about whether or not Nemesis had violated a crucial rule by pulling at Eurydice’s hair (“that’s bullshit, isn’t it, because it’s not fucking hair for hell’s sake, it’s a _snake_ ”) and Robbe was standing back amused, sipping his fresh drink, when to his immediate left he felt movement. The vila standing next to him at the bar had vacated her space and it had instantly been filled by someone new.

A wrench in the air pressure; a coppery smell, it was almost as though Robbe had Warped, but his feet were solid on the ground beneath him and besides this feeling was all too familiar. He thought about what Jens had said, _if you get too close, it will know_ , but there was nothing he could do about _that_ now, was there.

He turned his head and there beside him, draped against the bar at an indolent cocksure angle, silver head tilted as he scrutinized Robbe with loud, loud, _loud_ , interest, stood the red-eyed demon. He was still crying blood and he was still shockingly beautiful and the air in the club was, suddenly, not enough by half.

The demon smiled, an unhurried, wicked thing, and reached over to press his fingerprint onto the rim of Robbe’s glass. Up close he was dark, delicate, all black nails and smudgy eyeliner, thin ring of silver looped through his lower lip. His fingers were adorned heavily with metal and he _exuded_ assurance and he felt like nothing but impossibility.

“Shouldn’t you be drinking blood?”

 _Then I won’t get too close_.

Robbe swallowed.

“Shouldn’t you be bleeding it?”

Surprise flitted briefly across the demon’s chalk-white face; he chuckled and the sound was so low Robbe shouldn’t have heard it but he felt it like a scrape across his lower stomach. Around them the crowd roared in pleased low oblivion like within it nothing at all of interest was happening, like Robbe the Fledgling angel wasn’t talking back to a fucking _demon_.

“I do,” the demon said, one dark eyebrow bridging. The contrast to his platinum head was stark. “It just doesn’t look like this.”

He gestured to his face, to the evenly painted lines of red that poured steadily from his eyes, and smirked as he pressed in closer. Robbe’s blood was singing but he couldn’t tell if it was meant to warn or lure.

“What color do you bleed, then,” he said, gritting his teeth to stop his voice shaking. “Black?”

“That’s an interesting question with an interesting answer,” said the demon, flighty. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you what color I bleed if you tell me what you _really_ are, not-vampire creature.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is gonna get soooo intense oh my god. I can't wait for y'all to read the rest. :D
> 
> Come freak out about all things Skam with my on [my tumblr](https://luludemauryyy.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

Against his will Robbe felt his eyes wax huge; quickly he overcame himself and re-settled his expression into something near to nonchalance but he knew the flicker of shock had not gone unnoticed. The demon was smirking at him with one impossibly dark eyebrow rounded, gaze shifting like a searchlight over Robbe’s face.  _ The air is golden,  _ the demon had said dreamily, and Robbe was suddenly aware of the deeply gilded shade of his own eyes. Jens hadn’t gone so far as to doctor the hue when he’d Disguised them; Robbe was sure that he hadn’t thought he’d needed to. It was rare that any being outside of Greater Purgatory or the Upper Atmosphere possessed the kind of bravery it took to get close enough to an angel to see their eye color.

When the boy’s aureate eyes grew saucer-round, Sander knew he had nailed it. He turned his attention to the barkeep, ordered repeats of both his and Senne’s drinks, the transition between focuses as smooth as butter. By the time he looked back – a mere two, three seconds later – the enigmatic boy’s countenance had returned to credible stone. The insouciance was quite passable; normally Sander would have been convinced, but he’d seen the slip and he knew deceit when he was confronted with it because he was the  _ master _ of trickery. 

“I have no idea,” said the not-vampire imperiously, “what it is that makes you think I’m not a vampire.”

Sander grinned and it was katana-sharp.

“Couple reasons,” he said, casual, examining the perfect darkness of his left thumbnail before he looked up again. “First of all, anyone who’s guilty of exactly what they’re being charged with almost  _ always  _ says that they  _ have no idea _ what you’re talking about when you accuse them. It’s basically an admission of guilt.”

“Not good enough,” said the boy, bored, “but I’m curious about your other reasons. Back that up with some evidence and maybe we’ll talk.”

He raised his eyebrows to match Sander’s, took a long pull from his drink. Replaced his cup with a clatter on the bar as he angled his auburn head to the side and waited. Sander’s veins were hot.

“All right,” he said, trying not to let the warmth from his insides creep into his voice, “I’ll play. Second of all, not only is it Drinking Night, it’s fucking  _ Fight _ Night, and as we’ve already discussed, that’s definitely not blood in your cup. A little strange, don’t you think?”

“Maybe I’ve already had my fill,” said the being, running his tongue slow along the sharp line of his upper teeth. Sander followed the movement with unmasked interest, let the half-smirk on his lips deepen.

“Sure,” he said indulgently, knowing by some sheer loud instinct that playing along while clearly broadcasting his total disbelief would rile the absolute  _ fuck  _ out of the boy. “Maybe. But I’ve met a lot of vamps in my time, and from what I understand there’s no such thing as a vampire  _ having their fill _ of blood after a meager one round of Fight Night. That’s barely enough time for you to finish one goblet.” 

The bartender slammed Sander’s drinks down on the postage-stamp square of empty space in front of him; in payment he handed her a drawstring bag of solidified stardust without making eye contact, all of his focus honed on the minuscule alterations in the not-vampire’s facial expression. It was dark but by default Sander’s night vision was better than a jungle cat’s and he could see quick calculations occurring behind those ochre eyes.

“That’s a generalization,  _ don’t you think _ ?” The boy was a slick mimic stroking a finger along the lip of his chalice, unhurried as he spoke, ready as an Olympic track runner at the starting line. In the background Milan had begun to shout again, introducing the next pair of contenders, but Sander had never cared less about the specifics of a matchup. “You have no idea what I was doing before I got here, demon. Maybe I drained a fucking field full of bulls. Who are you to tell me how much it takes to quench my thirst?”

Sander was delighted; it thrilled him to hear himself addressed by his species, because very few creatures were bold enough to do so. No vampire he’d ever met – except Senne, but that classification was heavily secondary in his genetic makeup – had ever treated him with anything but deference bordering on worship. By showing an authentic lack of intimidation, the boy was solidifying Sander’s case without even being aware that he was doing it. 

“You’re right,” said Sander. He let his eyes caress the length of the boy’s angular body, working him, brazen. Where the collar of his crewneck dipped just slightly to reveal the suggestion of sharp bone Sander caught a glimmer of gold, a rope of chain disappearing down his flawless alabaster throat. “I don’t know what you were doing before you got here. But I’d love for you to tell me.”

Again the boy’s eyebrows arched, quick, and if Sander had known him better he’d have pegged something like pleasure in his eyes – he was quick, but Sander was too, and there was no shortage of appreciation between two individuals who spoke the specific language of each other’s witty banter. 

“I’m sure you would,” he said. His voice was low, lovely. “But I want you to tell  _ me _ something first, since you’ve met so many vampires and therefore know all about every single one of us. Have you ever encountered a vampire who was hungry for  _ your  _ blood? Ever had one drink from those strange eyes of yours?”

And Sander was just about to reply when from his side rumbled the harsh, territorial voice of his Maker.

“I have.”

*

Like a wraith the second demon materialized beside the first; Robbe recognized him as the one who earlier in the night had tried to stop the white-haired demon from reaching into the Shield. He was square-browed and stocky, all of him muscle, and he stood shoulders-forward with a kind of swagger that suggested he didn’t back down for anyone. Robbe blinked in disbelief, momentarily stripped of words, but before he could rally the brawny demon had turned to his companion, pugnacious expression relaxing into something like exasperated fondness.

“Noor got us a closer table to the arena so we don’t have to stand to see the important details anymore. Stop flirting with vampires and come on, you idiot, the second match is about to start.”

“I am not  _ flirting,”  _ said the white-haired demon, and Robbe thought he rolled his eyes but it was hard to be sure amidst all that deep, deep crimson. “And he’s not a vampire. You of all beings should know that, Senne.”

“What?” The darker demon looked mildly stunned. “He’s not?”

Robbe was still recovering from the surprise of (1) being addressed by a  _ second _ demon ( _ was _ he a demon, if he was a blood-drinker? Robbe didn’t know the specifics of being Unholy) who was clearly far less amused by his presence than the first and (2) being told that this new individual had tasted the paler one’s blood-tears. It was no wonder, then, that a third abrupt plot twist in as many minutes took him a moment to register. 

The demons were speaking  _ Dutch _ . 

Sudden, overwhelming heat at Robbe’s back warned him that Jens was there; his face colored pink, he had entirely forgotten that his Elder was nearby and there was no way he wouldn’t be getting lectured about his conversational partner later.

“No,” said Jens, and his voice was surface-calm but just below the layer of peace Robbe could  _ taste _ his poison. “As a matter of fact, he’s not a vampire. Hello, Senne.”

Even in the dusky dimness of the club the severe degree to which the darker demon’s face blanched was clear.

“Jens.”

Both Robbe and the white-haired demon lost their minds at the same time; frenzied, they began shouting in wild, habitual Dutch. 

“Jens, you  _ know  _ – ”

“Who the  _ fuck,  _ Senne – ”

“Later,” said Jens evenly to Robbe without taking his eyes from Senne’s face; Senne placed a quelling hand on the pale demon’s chest and he cut himself off but something like recognition flashed across his eyes. As the two Elders continued to stare each other down in silence he leaned over to Robbe and hissed,

“Were you speaking  _ Dutch _ ?”

“Were  _ you _ ?”

“ _ Sander _ ,” said Senne, and it was a  _ command _ . Instantly, the pale demon’s back went board-straight; Robbe had just enough time to wonder what in the fuck kind of names  _ Sander  _ and  _ Senne  _ were for  _ demons _ when Jens placed a hand on the back of his neck and gradual, cocooning warmth engulfed his entire body. Robbe looked sideways at his Elder in shock; Jens, after all his talk about the importance of remaining hidden, had removed their Disguises. 

Onstage, the Fury Nyx and her competitor, a sea elf with a broad, cruel face whose name Robbe did not know, had begun to spar. Their timing was fortunate; Robbe and Jens were both emitting a faint shimmer in the dark, but the crowd’s attention was wholly focused on the arena and if any being noticed they refrained from making a fuss. The demon pair was watching them; Senne’s face was grim and unsurprised, but the one with white-blonde hair –  _ Sander,  _ Robbe thought,  _ his name is Sander _ – had briefly let down his guise of unconcern and in its place was an expression of blatant awe. Savage tempestuous satisfaction heaved through Robbe’s core: so demons  _ could  _ be shaken.

“I knew you weren’t a vampire,” said Sander in the common tongue, low, and for all the marvel in his voice he might have been looking at a wonder of the world. The next words out of his mouth made Robbe’s stomach drop. “ _ Je bent een engel _ .”

Jens looked at him and his eyes were so cold that even brazen Sander flinched and lowered his gaze, hand coming up automatically so he could bite at the ring around his left index finger. 

“So this is your latest Fledgling,” said Jens, appraising him, stark and impassive with his searching stare. “I’ve heard of you, little demon. Pale as a wight with those bloody eyes. How’d you manage it, Senne?”

“Fuck if I know,” said Senne, and for a moment there was a shimmer of something akin to camaraderie between the two Elders. Robbe’s entire world was spinning, and not from the alcohol. “He’s one of a kind, they say. And yours? He can Shield?”

Robbe was furious at being addressed sideways like this, like he was incapable of speaking for himself, but Jens was reading him like a signal and he clenched the fingers of his hand tighter around Robbe’s neck.

“He can,” said Jens. “He’s very good at it, too.”

Robbe tensed.

_ I’m right fucking here, Jens. _

_ Wait. Soon. _

“Clearly,” said Senne. “I wouldn’t have had a clue you were here if Sander hadn’t Seen his golden haze. Impressive. So it’s your initiation to the LP, then, Fledgling? You picked a perfect night for it. What do you think?”

He was addressing Robbe now; Robbe turned his head to look at Jens for mocking permission, murder in his eyes; he hated being overriden by  _ anyone _ , but it stung the most when it was Jens, who always encouraged him to flourish, speak for himself, make up his own mind.

_ Am I allowed to talk now, DAD? _

Jens could not stop himself grinning; he covered the slip with a quick turn of his head into his sleeve, as though to hide a cough. His tattoos flashed in the spotlight glare.  _ Go ahead, kid. _

“It has been,” said Robbe caustically, with his eyes locked to Jens’s profile, “enlightening.”

Here he looked at Sander; the white-haired demon had recovered his composure magnificently, and when their eyes linked once more he smirked like that veneer of detachment had never budged. Everything was uncomfortably hot and Robbe hated him, how beautiful and sure of himself he was, how aloof he could pretend to be when Robbe knew that he could feel exactly how the air ignited when they gazed at each other.

“Enough enlightenment for one night, I think,” said Jens; he was fully cognizant of Robbe’s foul mood and at any rate his Fledgling had been exposed to far more than he’d intended on his first night in the LP. “I’d say it was good to see you, Senne, but, well. Lying’s frowned upon where we come from.”

“Funny you should say that,” said Senne coolly, “because all you’ve done tonight is lie about your identities, isn’t that right? Very, ah –  _ holy  _ of you. Driesen, let’s go, Noor and Britt are holding the table for us and they won’t be able to keep it for long if there’s only two of them.”

“Wait,” said Sander, and his voice was surprisingly soft. Both Robbe and Jens looked at him; he paused for a moment before the fiend in him re-emerged and he said with his red red eyes fastened to Robbe’s own:

“All that verbal foreplay and you aren’t even gonna tell me your name?”

Burning inside, gratified, Robbe feigned consideration. Senne and Jens were both looking at Sander in frank shock for his impudence; when Robbe grabbed Jens’s wrist the Elder angel jerked in alarm. 

“Don’t think I will, no,” said Robbe, and he winked. Then, before Sander could even begin to draw breath for a response, Robbe tightened his grip on Jens’s forearm and Warped.

Sander and Senne stood staring at the hollow space they had left, wordless, somehow a bit emptier than they’d both been a second before. Angels brought warmth and light wherever they went; in a place like this especially, where darkness was king and queen and dictator all three, the sudden absence was particularly rough.

Senne was the first to recover.

“You’re so fucking insolent,” he said, shoving Sander sideways, but he was laughing. “ _ All that verbal foreplay?  _ I told you we aren’t meant to mix with them.” 

“Senne, you’re on relatively civil speaking terms with an Elder angel, please shut the fuck up about  _ we aren’t meant to mix with them _ right now,” said Sander, unimpressed. “How do you know him?”

There was a beat as Senne measured his words. 

“We knew each other back in the day,” he said at last, carefully. “And when I say  _ back in the day  _ I mean when we were humans. And – we’ve had some mutual interests since then. I’ll tell you about it when I’m not blood-drunk at Fight Night, okay?”

“I’m not letting you forget about this,” said Sander. “I need to know whatever you’ll tell me so I can find his Fledgling again. He was…Jesus Christ.”

Startled, Senne grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. “Absolutely not, Driesen. You’re never going to see that Fledgling again, you hear me? Knock it off with those heart eyes.  _ He. Is. Not. For. You. _ ”

“But he  _ is _ for me,” said Sander, closing his bloody eyes, tongue working the ring cinched around his lower lip. “He really, really is. He was watching me across the fucking  _ room _ , Senne. I can see his  _ Shield _ . That’s got to mean something.”

“It means you have opposite Gifts,” said Senne patiently, as he led Sander back through the writhing crowd. Everything around them was a ruckus, but Sander couldn’t focus on any of it; he was thinking of how golden the Fledgling angel’s eyes had been, how ruinous his little wink at the end of their impromptu meeting. “That’s kind of a thing that happens with opposite creatures, you know. Don’t read any further into it than that.”

“Too late,” said Sander, and Senne sighed. When Sander looked into his Maker’s face he couldn’t read his expression.

“For once in your existence listen to me when I say forget about this. All roads lead to pain here, Sander.”

Sander folded his lips together, chuckled harshly, but the attempt at mirth didn’t touch his eyes.

“Nothing new for me, then.”

Senne leaned in and kissed his forehead in sad silence and then they were back with Noor and Britt and slamming the rest of their drinks, throwing themselves into this new version of the same old fight to go numb to their individual areas of hurt, and Senne didn’t let go of Sander until well after the match had finished.

* 

The thing with Robbe being in control of the Warp was this: he was  _ also  _ in control of the destination, and he was by no means ready to leave Exitium. When Jens realized that his Fledgling had simply transported them to the rafters of the club, one level above where Milan’s preferred vantage point, he sputtered in incredulity.

“ _ Ijzermans _ .”

“ _ Stoffels _ .” Robbe was in no mood; he crossed his arms aggressively over his chest, regarded Jens with eyebrows raised. “No way are we leaving here yet. I’ve seen one match and we’re not kicking ourselves out because you’re mad about a demon you’re on a first-name basis with getting in your space. Which, by the way, you completely failed to mention whenever they were  _ standing in front of us when we were Shielded _ . What the fuck, Jens? What’s going on?” 

Jens was silent for a moment; Robbe could practically see his thought process as he fought with himself about how much to reveal. Then he said, with not a little caution:

“Senne and I have - ah -  _ extenuating circumstances. _ ”

“You don’t say.” Robbe raised an eyebrow. “Might that explain why he was speaking fluent Dutch with his  _ Fledgling?” _

It was not uncommon for Fledglings whether dark or light to pick up a universal language or two - Spanish, English, Mandarin - within the first decade of their afterlife; fluency in other, more rare languages came with time, or were learned for the purpose of assignments to the countries in which they were regularly used. Dutch was on the latter of the two lists: if the pale demon -  _ Sander,  _ Robbe thought - was speaking Dutch, he must have spoken it in his human life, unless Senne had taught him. Robbe didn’t think that was the case: his accent was too perfect to be anything but native and it sounded like Jens; it sounded like HOME.

“Yes,” said Jens quietly. It was impossible to tell if you didn’t know him, but Robbe did, and he could say with confidence that his Elder looked shaken. “Yes, it would. We knew each other as humans.”

Robbe’s eyebrows climbed nearly past his hairline; he was stunned, he hadn’t thought of the possibility that humans could be acquainted in life but separated by caste at death. He thought of his mother, his best friend; thought of the pain that would come if they were damned and he saved.

“You – were you friends?”

Jens had been studying the ground, contemplative, all in his head. Now he pursed his lips, nodded once before he looked up and found Robbe’s eyes.

“Yeah, Robbe. We were.”

“Like,” said Robbe, processing as quickly as his head would allow, “like,  _ good _ friends?”

A little half smile rose at the side of Jens’s mouth, comma quirk. The strobe lights flickering haphazardly around the club were bouncing off his skin in such a way that he looked phosphorescent in the dimness. “We used to hang out at the past equivalent of today’s bars sometimes, did some odd jobs together. We weren’t best mates by any means, but I thought of him regularly when I wanted a friend to wreak havoc with.”

“But he was damned,” said Robbe slowly, “and you were saved?”

“I died a couple of years before he did,” said Jens; Robbe clocked the fact that he referred to Senne as a  _ he _ . “I’m not really sure what he got up to during that time, obviously, because we’re not supposed to go back to our homes on Earth for a century after we pass. We watch from afar sometimes, though, you know? When we get nostalgic.”

“Uh, we do?” Robbe felt like a punching dummy knocked down over and over just to immediately spring back up for endless blows:  _ thank you sir, I’ll have another _ . He was learning so much tonight that his brain couldn’t keep up with it all.

“It’s an option if it’s necessary,” said Jens. He was smiling again; he knew that Robbe was shellshocked, and he found his Fledgling’s wonder amusing. “My Elder took me back to Belgium a few times during that first decade because I wasn’t adjusting well. I missed my family, my friends, my human life. My little sister was my best friend and she had a difficult time when I died. I worried about her so much. I used to make flowers bloom outside her window so she’d smile again – peonies were her favorite.”

Robbe felt softness edging through his veins; this was why Jens had been granted angel status, he was one of the kindest beings Robbe had ever met. “Did she know it was you?”

“I don’t know,” said Jens softly. “I think she did, because she used to write me a letter every week and she kept them stacked on the windowsill. She always mentioned the flowers and how they reminded her of our adventures in the woods. In the summertime we’d pick bunches for our mama, scatter them around the house for her to find. She loved the surprise.”

“What was her name?”

“My sister’s name was Annika,” said Jens. “My mother was Griet, short for Margriet. They looked so much alike, especially as Anna got older.”

Jens was not a secretive being by any means; he was as open as Robbe needed him to be, but he had never spoken of his past in such textured detail before and the revelations added layers to him that made Robbe adore him even more than he already did. Gingerly he touched his Elder’s face and Jens closed his eyes, leaned slightly into Robbe’s hand.

“What happened to them?”

“My sister is a high tier angel,” said Jens, proudly. “I see her whenever we both have time. She has two open cases in Sweden right now, so whenever I go to Norway to check on that open mercreature case, we find a way to coordinate.”

“And your mother?”

“Mama is an Earth Spirit,” said Jens. “She helps keep nature in order, tries to combat things like climate change as much as she can. She’s healing the Amazon right now.”

“From the fires,” said Robbe in wonder, and Jens nodded. He was glowing, both literally and figuratively.

“She was always very in tune with the Earth. My sister got her love of flowers and wildlife from her. Our garden was something else.”

“I bet it was,” said Robbe gently, and then before he could stop himself he said, “Jens – can I ask you – ”

“How did I die?”

Robbe felt his face flush; Jens had never volunteered the information, and, feeling as though to pry would be disrespectful, he had never asked. Now, when they were framed by chaos in the thick darkness of a rowdy club in Lesser Purgatory, it felt like the wrong time to have this discussion. “You don’t have to tell me – ”

“Scarlet fever,” said Jens, and sensing his Fledgling’s discomfort he took Robbe’s face in his hands, forced eye contact. “Robbe, you can ask me anything. It’s okay.”

Robbe closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against Jens’s own.

“Were you in pain?”

“No,” said Jens. “I don’t remember much. Just feeling really tired and feverish for a few days, and then the delirium took over and the next thing I knew I was hanging on to my Elder’s back while she was flying through the clouds. I freaked the fuck out.”

The colloquialism made Robbe laugh out loud. “I can only imagine.”

Jens grinned, nostalgic, but then his face went soft. “Listen. From what I know of Senne’s Turning, it happened because his life went to shit and he made some stupid decisions. He was – there was someone he really cared about, and he couldn’t be with her. I think it drove him to recklessness in the end. He was a good guy, when I knew him.”

Robbe heard the unfinished end of Jen’s sentence even as he curbed it from dripping off his tongue. “ _ Maar… _ ”

“But he’s still a demon.”

“A good demon, apparently,” said Robbe, smirking, “or good enough at least for you to refer to as  _ he  _ instead of  _ it _ .”

“Oh fuck off. Can’t believe you can even speak that sentence aloud without getting smited.” Jens pulled a face. “Smited? Smote?”

“Smote,” said Robbe, grinning. “I think.”

“Either way,” said Jens, nonchalant as he shrugged, “officially, there’s no such thing as a  _ good demon _ . But...sometimes there are things that go off the record. Are you picking up what I’m putting down, Ijzermans?”

Robbe nodded once, turned his head, looked out into the crowd; he could not admit to himself that he was searching for that stark patch of white-blond against the darkness.

“So if Senne isn’t  _ completely _ beyond redemption,” he said, as casually as he could manage as he slid his fingers along the rafter railing, “does that mean his Fledgling isn’t, either?”

Jens threw him a look that was far too wise for Robbe’s peace of mind. “Don’t get any ideas, Ijzermans.”

“I’m not getting any  _ ideas _ \- ”

“Sure,” said Jens, “but I’m not fucking  _ blind _ , kid. I saw the way he was looking at you.”

“Obviously because I’m an angel and he’s probably never seen one before,” said Robbe, with a herculean effort at keeping his expression impassive. “I was pretty interested in them, too, you know.”

“The whole  _ never-seen-an-angel-before _ thing would be a valid argument,” said Jens with not a little smugness, “except he didn’t really seem to give a shit about me.”

Robbe felt his face go furnace-hot. 

“He’s a demon,” he said, in a tone that passed well enough for unconcern. “He’d burst into flames if he ever tried to touch me.”

*

Existence in Lower Earth, Sander had quickly learned, was not exactly like the gruesome depictions of hell he’d been exposed to in church as a child. 

There was no weeping and gnashing of teeth, no souls perpetually aflame, no screaming in agony without reprieve (although it was quite true that there was no rest for the wicked). Sure, the pit of fire was real (every couple of days the Flame Spirits put on lively performances set to music, a phenomenon very similar to fountain choreography on Earth), but it was mostly for decoration, as Lucifer liked his grandeur. There  _ were _ nine Circles, each categorized by rank: the lowermost two were reserved for High Tier demons and their Fledglings, Circles seven through four were occupied by Mid Tier, and so on. After new demons reached full maturity they had the option to relocate to their own residences, but Makers and Fledglings often formed incredibly close bonds and chose to live on together for substantial - sometimes infinite - amounts of time. Demons were classified not only by Tier but by Specialty; for example, Senne dealt primarily with the manifestation of Greed, and this was why, he told Sander, he’d spent a lot of time in the strip club  _ watching _ instead of  _ participating _ . He’d been lending his silent, forceful energy to the patrons of the place, riling the air to encourage heavy spending, desire for more than one worker at a time, endlessly refilled cups of booze. Greed, Senne said, pertained to far more than just money and material possessions. 

“And what is my Speciality?” Sander had asked.

Senne had looked him up and down, the stark ridges of his collarbones, his fat plum lips with their natural slight part and that attention-stealing silver ring, the lissome length of his torso and legs, and smirked.

“Don’t you know?”

“I can guess,” said Sander, who by now had learned to recognize the nature of someone’s gaze upon him.

“Guess, then. A prize if you’re right.”

In the mirror propped against Senne’s bedroom wall Sander had met his own gaze, startled still by the shock of pure red there.

“Lust.”

“Very good, Fledgling,” whispered Senne, and Sander’s heart - because against all laws of nature, he still had one, and it beat just the same - slammed in its jail cell of bones. 

After Sander had lost his mother, he had entered a corrupted world that remade him, molded him into something unrecognizable, forced him to reexamine his worth and find it wanting. Grasping for self-validation, he had turned to the shallow, incessant adoration of others, to men and women both who stared at him as though he were something delectable to be tasted and savored and worshipped, enjoyed. He knew that he was attractive, knew that he could use his body for currency, and on the countless days and nights he returned home to find his father slumped yet again in front of a late-night television show, dead at the eyes and silent, he slipped into the knowledge of his own beauty like a protective second skin. If his father would not give him love, he would use any means possible to find somebody who would. But no one did; not really, all that anyone on Earth ever wanted from him went no deeper than his gorgeous surface. No one was there to buy property, all they wanted was to rent from him, take out a loan, over and over until he was soulless and high letting his body be used for empty pleasure in exchange for money and drugs.

And then there was Senne. 

At first, Sander mistrusted Senne, resented him for taking the promise of eternal darkness away (“that’s a myth, Driesen, you either land in a different body in another universe or you become a creature of the Afterlife”), but as he studied Senne watching him in the mirror, he saw something shift behind the appreciative nature of his Maker’s gaze, something that made his throat constrict and his face go warm. 

Concern. 

Senne was concerned about him. 

He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he sensed it, felt it in the air between them, in the gentleness of Senne’s fingers dancing along the nape of his neck. Sander realized that he was shaking; Senne noticed, too.

“What is it, little one?”

“I just,” said Sander, and he had to go to war with himself to keep his voice from breaking entirely. “It’s just that you.”

“That I’m not going to use you as a sex doll?” Senne’s voice was kind and he was warm, warm, warm at Sander’s back, shocking when everything about demons was supposed to be cold and unfeeling. “That you’re not going to find me sitting like a vegetable in front of the TV every hour of every day? That I’m not going to be so blinded by my own heartbreak that I forget about your existence entirely?”

Grief swept through Sander like a whirlwind; he could not speak aloud so he whispered instead. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been watching you for a long time,” said Senne. “I’ve seen what kind of misery you were putting up with on a daily basis. I knew what you were going to do even before you did, so I made it a point to be there when it happened. You deserve to live, Driesen, I mean  _ really  _ live, not this bullshit facade you’ve been building around yourself since your mum passed. You won’t find happiness letting millionaires suck your dick for money or shooting poison into your bloodstream.”

Sharply Sander inhaled through his nose; Senne skimmed a finger along the teartrack that had traced its slow path halfway down his cheek. It was inundated with red, barely distinguishable from the blood that formed endlessly in Sander’s eyes. 

“I know you don’t remember what it feels like to be happy,” continued Senne, soft. “I know that all you’ve been doing for years is faking it. You are more than a pretty shell, Sander. Let me show you who you are.”

Sander wanted to believe in his sincerity, wanted to trust, to reach out and grab the hand that Senne was offering, but negative experience after negative experience had made him wary as a feral cat. 

“Why should I believe you?”

“I can’t give you an answer to that,” said Senne; he sounded as though he had been expecting such a response. “Honestly, I wouldn’t believe me if I were you. All you can do is take it minute by minute.”

So that was exactly what Sander did.

*

Technically, no being that existed in the afterlife required sleep, but the rigorous dyad of Drinking Night and Fight Night was at minimum draining and at maximum crucifying and Sander needed rest more than he had for a long time. After the winner (who was not, incidentally, Nemesis, but a milk-eyed goddess called Enyo who looked as though she could cleave you in half just by staring at you) was declared, Noor and Britt departed to find the afterparty, but neither Sander nor Senne desired an iota more of the ruckus than they had already experienced, and it was with great relief that Sander let Senne Warp them back to the Eighth Circle. When he was Sensing something with the kind of extreme power the angelic duo possessed, his energy source was constantly being diminished; he could not switch the ability off, and by the time they arrived back home he felt as though he’d been mauled.

“You look dead, Sander,” said Senne, and they grinned dopily at each other: mortality jokes never got old.

“I’m telling you, Senne, I don’t think they left Exitium when they Warped,” said Sander, bending down to untie the laces of his boots (when he’d first arrived in Lower Earth he’d been stunned that he still had to do things like  _ wear clothes  _ and  _ tie shoes _ and Senne had laughed at him:  _ what do you think we are, savages? _ ). “I wouldn’t be this tired if they had. It was like I was low-level Sensing all night.”

“If you feel this rough, then you’re right, they didn’t,” said Senne, musing. “I can’t fucking believe  _ Jens’s Fledgling  _ could Shield like that.”

“And  _ I  _ can’t fucking believe you know an angel and thought you’d get away with never telling me about it.”

“Until tonight, I had a one hundred percent success rate of keeping that secret,” said Senne, shouldering out of his jacket, dark hair all mess and tousle. “You fucked it up by having an unbelievably convenient Ability, Driesen.” 

Sander smirked, chastened and bolstered simultaneously.

“You created me this way, de Smet. It’s technically  _ your _ fault that I have this Ability.”

“Oh don’t get me wrong, it’s useful, I’ll give you that,” said Senne. His violet eyes were alight. “Just not today. Come on. Let’s get some rest and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Do you want me to - ”

“Stay with me, you need it,” said Senne, and he raised his dark slashed-through eyebrows at Sander before loping out of the room. 

In the early days, when Sander still slept at night - it was a habit that died hard, and he was so shit at breaking habits he’d ended his  _ life _ over it - he was a cliche, always woke up screaming shivering goosebumped in the middle of the night with bloodstains smearing his pillowcases. After the first several instances of this Senne had brought him into his own room, huge and dark and oval-shaped with a bed so large and soft it had seemed impossible to Sander. He’d said so aloud to Senne, who had given his deep grumbling chuckle in response. 

“You’re still very human, Driesen. You’ll get used to impossible things.”

After that, when Sander shattered himself back to consciousness amidst endless darkness, voice like shards of glass in his throat, Senne was there, already awake and ready for him. He held Sander while he sobbed, traced fingerprints down his spine until he stopped quivering, let him nuzzle in closer and closer until there was no space between them. Like this Sander as a mere Fledgling could absorb Senne’s powerful force, recharge, come back to himself - but this, Senne knew, would be difficult for him to do, because the horrific circumstances of his life on Earth had gradually erased who he truly was at his core until he was left stumbling lost with no north star. The state of him was unseemly.

Eventually Sander stopped screaming. He didn’t go back to the room Senne had provided for him because Senne made him feel safe as a bearcub guarded fiercely by its mother and it had been a long, long time since he had felt anything close to  _ that _ .  _ All you can do is take it minute by minute,  _ his Maker had said, and then he had proceeded to show Sander that he was going nowhere, that he wasn’t going to leave him or forget about him, that he had created him to nourish his soul back to health and restore within him the verve that he had possessed as a child. Senne reminded Sander what it felt like to live, to be cared for and valued and cherished, and it wasn’t long before he had become the most important being in Sander’s existence. Senne did not take from him what he would not willingly give and with each moment that passed he reinforced the fact that he had meant what he said: y _ ou are more than a pretty shell _ . With the way Senne had looked at him, such admiration in his violet eyes, Sander had expected his Maker to want him for the same reasons that everyone else did, but one night when they’d been curled languorously side by side in bed Sander had matched Senne’s gaze and parted his mouth uncertainly and Senne had astonished him by reading his mind. 

“You don’t have to give me your body for me to care about you, Sander.”

After that Sander had not doubted Senne again. 

Now, five years later, Sander only slept when he wanted to halt the world for a while, or when his power source was depleted, as it was tonight. On those particular occasions he and Senne went to bed together, lay close in the dark so Senne could give him what he needed: a refill of power. Until he reached full maturity as a demon, Senne had told him early, he would need these recharges occasionally: while Fledglings were quite capable of resting themselves back to peak strength over a few days’ time, Makers could restore their Fledglings to full capacity overnight simply by being close to them.

Sander had been sleeping in Senne’s bed since his third night in Lower Earth and each time he entered his Maker’s room he still stopped to marvel; Senne took his status of high demon to heart and had decorated his residence accordingly. Thick drapes dark as crowfeathers hung over the windows, shielding the interior from non-existent outside light. Around the room perched on shelves and bookcases and tabletops the gleaming skulls of various creatures were positioned, lit with harmless azure fire that Senne kept burning constantly with an incantation. The obscenely gigantic bed was swathed in red and black silk; tapestries depicting painstakingly detailed scenes from Revelation - Senne was fond of the Four Horsemen, two of whom he knew personally and sometimes hunted with - and Dante’s  _ Inferno  _ covered the walls, and three decorative inverted crosses were mounted above his headboard. Sometimes, for one reason or another, those crosses came loose and fell clunkily to the floor; each time it happened the irony was not lost on either Sander or Senne, and when Sander had come home one night with a fresh industrial piercing Senne had laughed in delight to see that his Fledgling had chosen a matching inverted cross for his jewelry piece. 

Routine survey of the ridiculous room complete, Sander stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind him.

“Will you sleep?”

Senne had already burrowed down under the comforter; he peeked out over the top of it to watch Sander strip off his jacket and t-shirt.

“Maybe. I might go hunt after you pass out. Something about drinking alcohol with blood always makes the thirst stronger.”

Sander snorted, bunched his clothes into a pile, threw them into the corner of the room. “Alcohol fucks things up for everyone, human or not.”

“Seems that way.” Senne was nestling; Sander could hear low rough exhaustion in his Maker’s voice. He climbed into bed, tangled himself in Senne’s warmth, exhaled in contentment as he settled in.

“You’re tired.”

“I’m a lot of things.”

“Such as?”

“Confused,” said Senne, after a moment. “It’s not like Jens to take a Fledgling to Fight Night for Lower Purgatory Initiation.”

Sander raised his head; a quivering droplet of blood splashed on Senne’s chest. “You know his tendencies that well?”

“Demons talk,” said Senne, distracted, eyes on the wet spatter of red, flagrant against the phantom hue of his skin. “I keep tabs.”

“Senne…”

“In the morning,” said Senne gently, and Sander turned his mouth down, that famed pout that had won him so many effortless wars on Earth. Senne swiped it away with his thumb, flicking his Fledgling’s lip ring gently, and Sander squirmed in protest. 

“Hey.”

“Don’t even try. You know that puppy-dog bullshit doesn’t work on me, pretty boy.”

“Sometimes it does,” said Sander with an insolent smirk, and Senne rolled his lovely lilac eyes.

“Go to sleep before I feast on you.”

“You’re supposed to  _ restore  _ me, not drain me, Jesus,” said Sander, finger dipping in the teardop of scarlet liquid pearled on Senne’s chest. He was thinking of how his blood might look merging with the gold of the angel’s skin tone, how sharp the contrast, how striking. When he pressed his fingerprint to Senne’s mouth the Elder demon sucked it clean, force of habit.

“You don’t make it easy.”

“You said you were thirsty. I’m giving you a drink.”

“You’re a bit contaminated at the moment, little one,” said Senne in amusement, but he licked his lips all the same. “You had just as much to drink as I did, maybe more, since it wasn’t offset by blood.”

“Fair,” said Sander. “Does my blood taste like alcohol?”

Senne considered him.

“No. It tastes like you.”

“Delicious, then,” said Sander insolently, and against his will Senne laughed out loud.

“You’re such a fucking brat.”

“You love it.”

“Yes, you truly light up my life, Driesen,” said Senne, deadpan, and when Sander barked out a surprised laugh Senne grinned too. His fangs were out, just slightly; Sander poked at them and Senne licked his hand. Sander whipped back, groaning.

“Fuck  _ off _ .”

“Don’t test me, Fledgling,” said Senne, eyes glitter-glowing. “There will be consequences.”

“Ohhhh.” Sander’s tone was mocking. “What are you gonna do, kill me?”

“I’ll banish you to the Lethe,” said Senne. “You’ll never see your Fledgling angel again.”

Sander’s face lit up like an exploding star. “I thought you said I’d never see him again anyway. You’re telling me there’s a chance?”

Senne rolled his eyes so hard they showed briefly milk-white. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do. I’ve existed long enough to realize that I should erase the word ‘never’ from my vocabulary,” said Sander brightly, and Senne snorted. 

“Go to sleep so you can be ready for tomorrow, you goon. I think I’m going to take you somewhere new.”

“Okay,” said Sander, happy chirping as he settled back on Senne’s chest. He was thinking of the way the Fledgling angel’s skin had shimmered in the dark of Exitium, the impudent, unaffected smirk that had flickered at the edges of his mouth, his trophy-colored eyes.  _ Don’t think I will, no _ , he’d said when Sander had requested that he disclose his name, and Sander could not stop repeating the words in his head: no creature he’d met before squared shoulders like that with a demon. “On the way you can tell me all about how you know your Elder angel.” 

“Sure,” said Senne patiently, rolling so they were front to front, legs and arms braided like rope-knots. “But you might forget about it when you see where I’m taking you.”

“Where are we going?”

“Lerna,” said Senne, and Sander opened his eyes wide as planets, gawping. “It’s time you met the Hydra for yourself.”

*

The last thing in the world that Robbe wanted to do after a night like that was sleep, so he took to the sky.

Jens was in the vicinity, near - they were nearly always within a safe distance of each other when they were not working on their own separate cases - but it was alone that Robbe soared and plunged through the stars, scraped his fingerprints through constellations, connecting the dots. When he settled it was somewhere within Orion, circled by the warm familiarity of iridescent light, and only then did he allow himself to think of what was truly on his mind.

_ Sander _ .

There was nothing, not in any world within which Robbe had ever existed, that had ever made him feel the way he had felt when the demon’s eyes had found him. 

He was not sure what to name the blossom that unfurled within his chest whenever he recalled Sander’s face, the fearsome, aggressive cardinal of his eyes, all of him black and metal and angry. He wondered if, by adorning himself so, the demon was trying to negate the undeniability of his own beauty, but there was no way around it. He was lovely, and it was a fact as true as the blue sky. 

Robbe wondered if he would ever see him again; in the same breath wondered if he  _ wanted _ to. By the time the dawn began to bloom hours later, peony pink and tangerine and aubergine, he was no closer to knowing the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Backstory is extremely important to me and this went deeper than I thought it would but it's so, so crucial to flesh out how Senne has taught Sander that his worth extends far beyond his surface. He was so damaged in his human life that it took someone like Senne, whose interest in him goes beyond his physicality and sexuality, to pave the way for Robbe and his unconditional care in the future. When they come together it's going to blow Sander's mind like Chernobyl. 
> 
> <3 hope you guys liked. I'll try to get chapter four up sooner. Life gets in the way or I'd be writing continuously.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Milan is chaotic, Robbe can't forget about Fight Night and everything about it, and Sander moves up in the world.

No in-depth case was ever assigned immediately after Drinking Night, so the following day Jens and Robbe spent early, idle, careless hours in the Upper Atmosphere lazing by the opulence of the Great Pool, too indolent even to speak aloud. It wasn’t like angels required any  _ actual _ recovery time after imbibing - Robbe did  _ not  _ miss hangovers - but even Holies deserved rest, and the day after such a monumental occasion was the perfect opportunity for it. 

After some time had passed - Robbe still measured in  _ hours  _ and  _ minutes  _ and  _ days  _ because he didn’t know how else to assign descriptions to the constant forward motion of his existence - a shadow fell upon them; he and Jens had been silently discussing whether they should leave their comfortable posts and venture into the water, but at the interruption the meaningless, comfortable stream of consciousness between them halted abruptly.

“Jens _Stoffels_ ,” said a familiar voice, “I can’t believe you brought your _baby Fledgling_ to the LP for his initiation during _Gorgon_ _Fight Night_.”

Robbe opened his eyes. Towering over them was Milan, as imperious as ever with his straight spine and fuck-you facial expression, unapologetic in neon green swim trunks and gigantic (unnecessary, Robbe thought, because the sun didn’t exactly affect the UA as it did Earth, you could stare right into it and never lose an ounce of vision) blue sunglasses that obscured his devious eyes. Today he had pastel hair and his mouth was painted an opalescent shade of silver and Robbe had never been so delighted to see someone in his life.

“I know I don’t know you,” he said, raising himself up on both elbows to squint into the overbright light of the hybrid elf-sylph’s existence, “but you’re a fucking  _ badass _ , dude.”

Milan’s facial expression cleared; he raised one coy shoulder to his ear in mock - but very convincing - modesty. “I knew I’d like you,” he said, and he held out one long smooth-skinned hand. “I’m Milan. Charmed, little Fledgling.”

“Robbe.”

They shook; Milan smiled and Robbe mirrored it, fascinated. He had never seen anything quite like this creature even in his Afterlife; a half-elf, half-sylph was an incredibly rare combination, and Milan took his natural deviation from the norm and ran gladly with it, played it up to brilliance. He was really quite astonishing to behold. 

“Mil _ an _ ,” said Jens, groaning as he sat up, but there was badly-veiled amusement behind his annoyance. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have to clean up the carnage after Fight Night, or whatever?” 

“Me? Clean that stage? Please.” Behind his obnoxious glasses Milan’s eyes circled in his head; he plopped down on the end of Jens’s sunbed, as comfortable with him as though they’d been existence-long friends. Maybe they had, Robbe hadn’t a clue; he was learning so much lately that he was fairly sure that nothing held the clout to shake him anymore. “We have gnomes for that. Besides, there’s not much to clean up on Gorgon night. If someone loses a snake, well, they clear their own mess, as you saw with Eurydice.”

Robbe winced. “She was furious.”

“She shouldn’t have been,” said Milan, grinning. “Nemesis is  _ terrifying _ . Can’t believe she didn’t win, Enyo really surprised me. Speaking of surprises, though, Jens, you ran into someone unexpected last night, hmm?”

Jens was laughing quietly; Robbe recognized his tone as unsurprised acceptance. “You see everything, you asshole.”

“Why do you think I hang out in the rafters? Can’t miss anything up there,” said Milan cheerfully. “How is our good friend Senne?”

“You’d know more about that than I would,” said Jens, deceptive in his tranquility, “but his Fledgling is something else.”

“Mm. You’re not the only one who thinks that, I believe,” said Milan, and he shifted his pointed gaze to Robbe. “How did you find your first encounter with the Unholy, little one?”

Robbe had been wrong - it was still possible for him to be shocked. He swallowed, brain speeding as he fought for an answer that would not make him sound ridiculous. “I - he was insolent.”

The manner in which Milan arched his perfect eyebrows was far too omniscient for Robbe’s liking. “As were you with him, I think.”

“He’s a demon,” said Jens, interrupting, and Robbe was glad for the opportunity to collect himself, form his open face back into indifference. “They’re supposed to defer to us.”

“Supposed to,” said Milan lightly, examining the end of one long white-tipped nail, “but that didn’t stop dear old Lucy from disobeying the Old Man in the Sky, did it? Besides, after finding out that his Maker is on fairly civil terms with an Elder angel, what did you expect? That boy is made of brashness already, seeing the two of you talking like you did would only serve to make him even bolder.”

“Sorry,” said Robbe, dumbfounded still, “but how did you even see all of this? Weren’t you refereeing the matches?”

“I have enhanced senses and an excellent ability to compartmentalize,” said Milan, “which means I can devote full attention to several things at once. So if I’m interested in something, it’s pretty hard to get by me. Take note, little Fledgling.”

And he winked.

“Milan,” said a new, fondly exasperated voice from behind them, “are you stirring the pot again?”

All three men turned to look in the direction of speaker; there, standing with her arms crossed over her chest and a knowing look on her lovely porcelain-skinned face, was Zoë. Robbe knew her as Jens’s first Fledgling; sometimes the three of them hung out in Greater Purgatory together, and in Robbe’s first year of Afterlife, when Jens had been bogged down with assignments for three days straight, Zoë had taken him to see the Great Pyramids. She was as incredibly kind as she was gentle and he’d liked her immediately; she could also, as she was now, be unshakable in her determination to unearth the truth.

“I am always,” said Milan with great pride, preening, “stirring the pot.”

Zoë sighed, gave in, smiled as she walked around to sit on the side of Robbe’s sunbed. She was wearing a cream-colored swimsuit and it popped brightly against the gilded lines of ink tracing her arms and shoulders, sun reflecting from her like a mirror. 

“Go on, then. What’s the drama this time?”

“He’s giving us shit for fraternizing with an unsavory crowd at Fight Night,” said Jens, “and I wouldn’t blame him, except we  _ weren’t  _ fraternizing. Senne’s Fledgling was intruding on Robbe’s space, and we both had to intervene.”

“Senne?”  Zoë’s expression shifted fractionally; if Robbe hadn’t been looking at her straight on he’d have missed it. “Senne de Smet?”

“Don’t tell me  _ you  _ know him, too,” said Robbe, stunned.

“I know him,” she said , grim. “Well, I  _ knew _ him. When we were human.”

“Oh?” Robbe rounded on Jens, eyebrows arched. “Did Zoë also chill at the pub with you two?”

“No,” said Jens, laughing. “I don’t think that would have been allowed back in the day.”

“Until last night I thought all angels referred to all demons as ‘it’,” said Robbe slowly, “and now I find out that my  _ Elder _ and his  _ first ever Fledgling  _ are both on speaking terms with the same demon? My entire Afterlife is a lie.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Milan, with his tricky smirk. “There was no need for you to know, until you did. Am I right?”

“You are right,” said  Zoë. “But it’s hard to get your world shaken up like that. Robbe...trust me when I say this, and I think Jens will agree with me. Some things we don’t tell our Fledglings because we’re trying to protect them. That old human saying, ‘ignorance is bliss’? It still applies to existence here. There’s no reason for you to think that angels need to speak to demons at all, because usually, there isn’t. It’s just that when you know someone in life and they end up as your direct opposite when you cross over...things can get complicated.”

Robbe perused her face, searched her beautiful mercurial eyes.

“Is it complicated with you and Senne?” 

She didn’t flinch, but the tone of her voice was too steel-edged to be wholly careless.

“Not anymore.”

“Once complicated, always complicated, I say,” said Milan cheerfully. “But I digress, that’s neither here nor there. Nothing planned for any of you today? Relaxing, sunbathing?”

“Hmmm,” said Jens, stretching luxuriantly, arms over his dark head. His ink was as brilliant as a gem mine and it undulated over his skin as he moved; one could not help but ogle him, his magnificence. “Maybe. We might go on a field trip later, after we’ve recovered sufficiently.”

Zoë grinned. “Fight Night was good, then?”

“It was amazing,” said Robbe staunchly, and Jens groaned, rolled his eyes, mouthed  _ I’ve created a monster _ . “I’m guessing you’ve been to one, since it’s an initiation thing and all that?”

He glared pointedly at Jens, who jabbed him in the ribs, good-natured. 

“I go sometimes, when the mood is right,” said Zoë. “Jana is too young to see anything like that right now, though, she’d keel over if I took her anywhere near the LP.”

Jana was Zoë’s Fledgling; she was a little under six months into her existence in the Afterlife, and she was still adjusting. Robbe had met her several times but hadn’t yet had time to grasp an understanding of her personality, as she was very reserved and still extremely bashful while she came into her own as an angel.

Milan, whose attention had been wholly consumed by a particularly handsome seraphim sauntering with practiced indifference along the side of the Great Pool, turned to Zoë with mild interest. “Speaking of. Where is Jana right now? I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two of you apart.”

“She’s observing Gabriel today,” said Zoë. “He’s in Ghana trying to intervene with the political tension that’s been occurring in the country lately. She’s very interested in the legal side of Peacemaking, so I thought it would be good for her to spend some time with him.”

“Smart,” said Jens. “Well. Robbe and I were just about to get in the water when Milan decided it was gossip hour, do you guys want to join us? We can keep spilling tea if it’ll make you happy, Mil.”

“I’ll come,” said Milan at once, getting to his feet. “I want to hear all about this potential field trip of yours.”

“I’ll come too, but I’m laying out first,” said Zoë, immediately reclining on Robbe’s sunbed when he vacated his seat. “Alone time is rare these days. See you guys in a bit.”

And she flipped over on her stomach and put her white-gold head down. As she moved her hair caught the light; Robbe was reminded sharply of Sander and he bit puckishly at the inside of his mouth to force his thoughts away. Anytime Jens was in the vicinity there lurked danger of having your mind looted; Jens swore he didn’t go looking on purpose, that sometimes he heard things without meaning to - “it’s like snippets of radio frequency when you change the channel” - but Robbe wasn’t sure he entirely believed him. 

“I want to hear about the field trip too, actually,” said Robbe to distract himself as they approached the water. In the soft lush sun the surface sparkled, cerulean blue. “I thought we weren’t doing anything today?”

“Weeeeeeeell,” said Jens, with a catastrophic gleam in his chocolate-bar eyes, “while we were chilling on our sunbeds I couldn’t help but tune in to the conversation the two fauns beside us were having. Apparently there’s something going on in the lakes tonight.”

“You couldn’t help it just like I can’t help eavesdropping on anything and everything juicy,” said Milan, flippant. “So, what is it then? Something big after Fight Night? This must be bigger than us, like  _ ancient-creature-who-doesn’t-go-to-parties _ big, because no one in either the UA or LE has got the  _ energy _ to start something after that shit.”

“It is bigger than us,” said Jens, grinning. “It’s full moon in Cancer tonight. That means the Hydra is prime for venom milking, and the Fates need a refill on potion supplies.” 

“Oh, those hags,” said Milan dismissively. “Clotho was up in arms about an unauthorized Turning at the last Hybrid council. She loses her entire shit if anyone makes one tiny move that she and her sisters aren’t informed about in advance.”

“That’s what I hear,” said Jens. By now they were ankle-deep in the pool and the sudden pleasant coolness of the water caused them all to sigh unconsciously aloud. “She’d get mad if someone took a piss without letting them know.”

“Careful,” said Milan, grinning, “invoke her name in vain and she might hear you.”

“You said it, not me,” said Jens, and then he dove.

Robbe watched him go, mercreature under the instability of the surface, and Milan nudged him.

“Has he taken you to Lower Earth yet?”

Robbe looked at him planet-eyed. “Of course not. I’m not experienced enough to be doing business there, even if I’m just observing. Isn’t it really rare for angels to be down there anyway?”

“Yes,” said Milan, “on record, anyway. Sometimes there are unauthorized visits.”

“But doesn’t - ” Robbe couldn’t say  _ God;  _ to this day he had no idea what exactly to call the Higher Power that existed, had no idea where things began and ended, didn’t care to go sleuthing because in this new reality it didn’t matter at all “ -  _ something  _ keep track of all that stuff?”

Milan raised an eyebrow, watching for Jens, who had just surfaced with his black-velvet hair dripping down the laced gold of his back. “Omniscient doesn’t mean all-caring, Robbe. If the creator took the time to deal with everything untoward that goes on in the universe, it would be miserable indeed.”

Robbe’s head was whirling, fair ride, spinning teacups. “Do you go to Lower Earth?”

“All the time,” said Milan, as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to go hang out in Hell. “I play blackjack with some of my wendigo friends in the Eighth Circle a few times a month. If you ever want to go, give me a call. Maybe you’ll run into your  _ insolent _ demon friend again.”

Like something had reached in and snatched it from his chest Robbe lost his breath. 

“He’s not my - ”

“Your what?” Milan raised his eyebrows, innocent, but Robbe read from his expression that Milan was privy to precisely the magnitude of that strange invisible force that seemed to stretch heavily between he and Sander. “Relax, little one, I won’t tell Daddy that you want to look at your pretty demon again. Remember that I deal in shadows. Let’s go.”

And he slid without a splash beneath the water to join Jens.

Stricken, Robbe breathed out through his nose, tilted his face upwards to the overhead dome, unseeing. The Great Pool was impossibly resplendent, all gold and white with jungle-green trees and towering, impossible water slides, fountains comprised of iridescent colors spilling into the basin from all angles, but today its staggering effect was dimmed. Robbe was loop-stuck on  _ je bent een engel,  _ metal rings and confidence so thick it had a  _ scent _ . And now Milan was offering him a leg up (down?) into the enigma of Sander’s world, telling him that clandestine excursions to the LE took place on the regular, that he could come along sometime, if he was courageous enough to take the risk.

He already knew what his answer would be.

*

Sander dreamt of harps and seas of gold, clouds whiter than cotton, sharp intrusive fingers of dawn light trailing over shimmer-gilt skin. He awoke twice: once when Senne slid from the bed to slake his thirst and again when he returned, skin as luminous as a silver star, satiated. Senne’s energy was always different after he Fed; when he curled up behind Sander and drew him in he felt the force of his Maker like a shock. Lingering odors of copper and ash arose when Senne shifted, telltale signs of a successful hunt, but by now the scent was so familiar to Sander that it felt like home. He nuzzled back into Senne’s incomprehensible warmth, purred sleepily. 

“Better?”

“Much,” murmured Senne, raking a fond hand through Sander’s disobedient hair, and even the timbre of his voice was richer. “Sleep, little one.” 

Sander slept. When he awoke he was at full charge and everything was that much louder, clearer, stronger, more radiant. Senne’s skin was like moondust, his breath hot and slow and rhythmic, the sound of his bloodstream as crystalline-sharp as a riverflow; Sander felt as though he could put his ear to the ground and hear the very heart of Hell. 

“Look at you,” said Senne with approval when Sander rolled over, stretched, the red of his eyes as pronounced as the pit of fire, all stark bones against near-translucent skin. “Just what you needed, hmm?”

“Yes,” said Sander, alert, predatory. “When are we going to Lerna?”

Senne glanced over at the clock on the wall; it did not measure time in human hours but rather in positions of celestial bodies and planets. At present the primary hand - one of over a dozen - was pointed squarely at the moon, which meant that in the closest geographic location to Lower Earth, it was night.

“As soon as you can be ready.”

Like a feral animal Sander grinned.

“Now.”

As a child Sander had loved reading stories about what he’d assumed were allegorical creatures, losing himself amongst pages of storybooks and history tomes both, each text as fascinating to him as the next. His favorite mythologies were Greek and Roman, and he to this day was enchanted by everything to do with monsters. Senne had promised to bring him before each of his favorites in due time - gargantuan, vicious Cerberus patrolling the entrance to Hades’ lair, merciless Scylla with her accurate aim and penchant for vengeance and Megalodon teeth, the three-headed Hydra of Lake Lerna. Now that the moment had finally come to venture forth and experience one of them in the flesh Sander could barely comprehend what he was about to do: in spite of it all, in spite of what he had become and the wonders that he now witnessed every day in Lower Earth, part of him still couldn’t quite believe that the monsters were  _ real _ .

With haste he dressed, ate (another aspect of life after death that was not necessary, but rather performed when desired as an act of pleasure) while Senne lounged in bed, content to rest for a bit longer as Sander with his mind ablaze tore about the house in a tornado rush of excitement. For the first time in hours he was not wholly focused on the Fledgling angel whose name he had been denied the privilege of knowing and the realization of this unsettled him: it was against his flighty nature to be so quicksand-stuck on one individual. 

When he was finished preparing for the day he stood at the end of the bed, grabbed Senne’s ankles impatiently.

“Can we Warp there?” 

“Yes,” said Senne, grinning at his enthusiasm, “but not from here. We’ll need to go to Nine for the clearest projection pathway.”

“Nine,” said Sander slowly, comprehending, “you mean - the Ninth Circle?”

“Bingo,” said Senne, swinging gracefully out of bed. In less than thirty seconds he was dressed, fresh, looking for all the world as though he’d slept twelve hours and bathed in a fancy mud spa in Iceland. “Close your mouth, Driesen, you look like a Venus fly trap. Let’s go.”

Senne was a high tier demon - one of the highest in the Eighth Circle - but there existed a level above his, one reserved for the very elite, many of whom had fallen with Lucifer or followed him down soon after his own personal declaration of independence. The demons that dwelled  in Eight had all been successful members of the LE for long enough to earn merit, and they were regarded in extremely lofty esteem, but Nine...Nine was of another class entirely.

“Think of them as the two biggest shopping malls in one city,” explained Senne, when Sander had asked him about the differences between the two highest circles. “So your first mall has all the stuff that the average middle class population can easily afford - like H&M, Sephora, Zara, a nice restaurant, that kind of thing. That’s Eight. But Nine has everything ELSE. That’s where you go to get your Gucci, Versace, five hundred Euro pair of jeans. There’s, like, valet parking and probably a steakhouse and some shit. That’s Nine.”

“So who the fuck even lives there then?” Sander was wrinkling his nose; the upper class population in his hometown had been, for the most part, the worst kinds of people, and they all did their darkest dealings in the shadows. 

“Hades,” said Senne, “Thanatos. Beelzebub and Anubis and Asmodeus. Those kinds. The OGs, or whatever the kids are saying these days.”

Sander had laughed at him then, and Senne had smiled.

“Do you talk to them?”

“Well, a lot of the demons that live in Eight have meetings with the higher ups,” said Senne casually. “I hunt with Pestilence and War sometimes, and I’ve been to Cambodia with Amon before for a big case we were both working. So yeah, I do. Eight and Nine rub elbows at parties a lot, so to speak.”

Sander was spellbound. “What do they do? I mean, what do they specialize in?”

“The heavy stuff,” said Senne. “Outbreaks, chemical and environmental disasters, fearmongering, war. But not everything we do in the LE is negative. Even demons prevent unnecessary evils, Sander. It’s just that if there’s going to be light, there has to be dark. No one in any corner of this universe could appreciate the good without the bad.”

Directly in front of the entrance to their high rise - which looked astonishingly like many of the flat complexes Sander had passed by every day in Antwerp, except for the fact that this one was much more opulent and much more terrifying - Senne turned to Sander and smiled; his fangs were white as diamonds, freshly sharpened on God knew what, weaponized.

“Are you ready or what?”

Sander was so ready he was quivering for it.

“How do we get there?”

“If it was just you, you’d need to go to the Department of Inter-Circle travel to get a pass. But since you're with me, and I’m kind of a big deal,” said Senne, winking, “we can Warp. Hold on.”

He held out his arms; Sander made fists around his wrists and Senne gripped him back and just like that they were soaring, flailing with remarkable grace through the time-space continuum, existing in impossible ways, and then — 

— they stopped.

Sander had spent so much of his time in the Afterlife dreaming about what the Ninth Circle would be like that it had all bled together into a sort of crystalline canvas in his head, no definite form, shimmering emerald Oz in the distance. It was Vegas, it was Amsterdam, it was Dubai; Monte Carlo, Paris, San Francisco, but in reality, it was none of those things. 

It was better. 

The idea of Oz in Sander’s head had been a solid framework; the cityscape around them was indeed a glittering uniform leviathan, but instead of green, it was black and bloodred and gray, muted tones beneath the inlaid shine. They’d landed in what appeared to be the central point of the city, just in front of a gigantic steel skyscraper the size of which was staggering; in fact, the sheer height of all the buildings within eyesight was unbelievable. Sander had to force his head back in order to spot where several of them ended, domes and spike-tip points in the grim gunmetal sky, menacing. As in the Eighth Circle, there was a road system crisscrossing through what he could see of the city layout, but where in Eight it was mostly for show, in Nine it seemed that it was actually put to use. Wealthy humans were clearly not the only beings who took to the Highway to flaunt their opulent, expensive vehicles.

With deep gratification Senne was watching the stricken awe on Sander’s face.

“This was worth it just to see the way you look right now, Driesen.”

“What?” Sander was distracted; his head had been turned by the sound of an unholy shriek, and he had located the source of the noise, a cavern-black Night Dragon clawing its fearsome way through the air. From afar it was difficult to see clear specifics but it was as eye-catching as the majestic city below, its wings spiked and shimmering and sharp-edged as swords, eyes glowing stark Artic blue amongst all that pitch, pitch black. Sander was wordless.

“Your face,” said Senne, and he snapped his fingers before Sander’s gore-dripping eyes; Sander came back to himself abruptly. 

“Senne,” he said excitedly, “that’s — a  _ Night Dragon _ .”

“Yep,” said Senne. Internally his chest was soaring at the fervid expression on his Fledgling’s face; for almost a year after Sander had Turned, he’d been so lifeless that Senne had worried that he might have been beyond salvage. When he’s begun to exhibit signs of interest in the astonishing things around him it had felt like a miracle — and even though Senne as a demon was supposed to scoff in the face of such Holy doings, he had been human once, and he still harbored a healthy respect for improbabilities. “We can ride one sometime, if you want.”

“We can?” Sander’s eyes could not possibly wax wider. 

“Yeah, we can. I know the dragon tamer. He’ll let us ride whenever we want, if we catch him on a good day.”

“The dragon tamer. Hesperides,” said Sander, and Senne nodded. “And you’re just now telling me this? What the fuck else can we do, Senne?”

“You’ll learn,” said Senne smoothly, face impassive, but even centuries of practice could not hide the flicker of smirking secrecy that touched his eyes. Sander noted the change in expression without comment, tucked it away for future use; it was not something he had room in his overstimulated brain to approach just then. Blinking, he regrouped.

“Where are we?”

“Christian Demonology Headquarters,” said Senne, gaze tracking to the intimidating building Sander had first noticed upon their landing. “The CDH for short. This is where Lucifer’s ilk do their darkest plotting, if we’re being dramatic about it. He comes here sometimes, I hear, but I’ve never seen him.”

“Are we going inside?” Sander could not look around quickly enough, could not begin to take in half the visual feedback his mind demanded; the Night Dragon had been joined in the sky by a gold-plated Sphinx, and he couldn’t decide where his attention should go. Across the way a gigantic stone pyramid, encased in that same strange dark glitter, loomed almost as massively as the CDH.

“Not today,” said Senne, smiling; he had seen the direction of Sander’s attention. “We’ll walk past the Egyptian Headquarters on our way, though, so you can get a closer look. Let’s go.”

He inclined his head; Sander reached out automatically to grab his Maker’s wrist just to stay grounded, just to keep himself afloat, and they began to walk. An inquiry regarding their destination rose to his lips but died almost immediately when he looked straight ahead: Osiris and Anubis, immersed in intense conversation, were crossing the path in front of them. 

Without looking around Senne used his free hand to close Sander’s gaping mouth.

“Get used to it, kid,” he said. “You’re going to be coming here a lot more frequently soon enough.”

“Because you trust me with bigger cases,” said Sander, recovering enough to regain some of his natural swagger. 

“Yeah, I do,” said Senne, “and because Asmodeus does. You’ve been doing well, Driesen. You’re impressing the right beings.”

Sander’s eyes went huge again: Asmodeus was the Archdemon of Lust, one of the Seven Princes of Lower Earth, the Unholy to whom all lesser demons of lust and sins of the flesh answered. From the vague murmurings he had heard about her, she was extremely formidable — and rightly so. She had to be nothing short of the term to be one of only two female Archdemons boasting the title  _ prince _ .

“She knows about me?”

“She knows about every one of her underlings,” said Senne, amused, “but she’s been in contact with me to express her satisfaction with your work. It’s no small thing, Sander. She has high expectations.”

Sander was silent, but he couldn’t stop a little self-satisfied grin from curling across his mouth, and as they trekked steadily through the impressive city center he could feel his back straightening with the knowledge. This might have been the most prestigious Circle of Lower Earth, and he might just have been a lowly Fledgling, but if one of the Seven was satisfied enough with his work to let his Maker know, perhaps it meant he had finally found somewhere he belonged. 

Their path, marked by the appearance of a great number of interesting creatures — including but not limited to a wendigo, a banshee, and a shifty cloaked figure that Sander suspected might have been Erebus — led them to the edge of the city, where the bustle dropped immediately into calm. It was unsettling to witness firsthand how similar to every major city on Earth the LE truly was — where Lesser Purgatory was grim and brackish and hopeless, the LE was shimmering, fantastic, well-kept. Sander suspected that this was because many humans who had not yet been granted conversion to their post-mortal forms dwelled in Purgatory, whereas in Lower Earth and Upper Atmosphere, every being was an immortal of some kind. The LE and UA both were certainties, constants; Purgatory was supposed to be shifting, desultory, all slippery mudslide ground and ambiguity. The point of it was to teach and humble and reset — beautiful architecture was not exactly high on the list of necessities in such a place. 

Sander, not quite finished gawking, was still looking back over his shoulder at the splendor of the city when Senne stopped abruptly in front of him; caught unaware, he bumped into his Maker’s back and caught himself. 

“Sorry — ”

“It’s okay, it’s a lot,” said Senne patiently. “But you should look in front of you instead of behind now. The city center isn’t the only thing interesting about Nine.”

So Sander did as Senne suggested and looked. 

Before them spread a vast expanse of charcoal-colored water, its opposite shoreline demarcated by a spread of dark trees, jagged edges against the sky. The aqueous, roaring volume of the water was so loud Sander couldn’t understand how he hadn’t noticed it before, but now that his attention had been roused he could not seem to refocus. Beneath the usual sounds of running water, all the gurgles and burbles and trickling, he thought he could hear something else, something far more sinister than the rushing of a violent stream, something that sounded eerily similar to the constant murmur of self-torture that had existed in his head when he’d been human. It took him a moment to assign meaning to the noise and when he did his body of its own accord gave an all-over shudder.

It was the sound of wailing.

Senne caught the expression on Sander’s face, slid a hand under his marble-boned chin to force eye contact; Sander wanted to look at him, needed the abrupt reassurance of his Maker, but the river was calling him, a part of it felt like home, like pain, like the fate he had sworn to himself that he deserved for years and years of his miserable human life and it was SO LOUD and he couldn’t remember how to inhale and

“Hey,” said Senne, gently but firmly. “Sander. Look at me.”

“Senne,” said Sander, and his voice was trembly-faint, his red red eyes still pinned to the slow-dark stream of water. He found himself unable to move.

Senne put his hot hands one atop the other on Sander’s white-blonde head, closed his eyes, breathed out like the wind. When he spoke his voice was low and tranquil and grounding and the depth of it brought Sander’s attention back, slow like waking from a dream, steady. 

“ _ Qui affecto protego, mixtisque iubas serpentibus et posteris meis stirpiqu. _ ”

Rushing warmth rained from Senne’s hands, 

from the point of contact at the top of Sanders’s head throughout his entire body, a decanter being filled with brandy. Immediately the sinister sound of the water was dulled, the effect of the wailing diminished to a pleasant hum, and Sander drew his gaze from the endless black to rest on Senne’s face.

“What was that?”

“A protection spell,” said Senne, taking Sander’s face in his hands; Sander warmed for the apprehension in his eyes. “The Styx is no easy opponent. As you age, you’ll be affected by it less and less, but it’s never kind to Fledglings, especially those with pasts such as your own. Did you hear the screaming?”

“Yes,” said Sander, and again that finger of arctic chill stroked down the column of his spine, but it was immediately flushed out by the warmth of Senne’s spell. “What is it? Are there people in the water?”

“Magic,” said Senne. “It’s not real. This river is the way humans must use to cross into Lower Purgatory when they first pass into the afterlife, and Lucifer likes his little tricks. It’s designed to make them remember the worst parts of their past lives, bring them down a notch, so to speak.”

“Effective,” said Sander softly. 

Senne stroked his Fledgling’s gaunt alabaster face once, licked his blood-coated thumb clean.

“Better?”

“Yes,” said Sander, and he meant it. “Do we have to  — you know, cross it, or anything?”

“Glad you asked,” said a rusty voice from beside them, and both Sander and Senne turned for the sound, synchronic in their surprise.

Upon first glance it appeared that the figure which had materialized so suddenly before them was hovering, phantomlike, over the water; however, when Sander looked more closely, he could see that its feet were planted firmly on the deck of a wooden boat. Though small, the boat appeared quite hardy, and judging by the sharp detail carved out all over its surface it had clearly been constructed with painstaking care. The figure was gigantic and swathed in a thick black cloak, reaper-like, the culmination of all of Sander’s childhood nightmares, and all of it worsened by the fact that the face beneath said cloak —if indeed there was one — was not visible. Sander was glad that he had been granted the immediate jump from human to demon; if he had had to cross the screaming river Styx with this horrific ghoul as his captain, he was not certain that he would have made it to Purgatory. 

“Charon,” said Senne, and to Sander’s astonishment he was grinning. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”

For a moment the figure stood, motionless, a night terror wraith against the frame of that black black water, the vague dark forest on the opposite side of the stream. Then it reached up in one smooth motion and pulled down its hood to reveal the face of a perfectly ordinary — though exceptionally regal — human man.

Whatever Sander had expected, it was certainly not that. For the umpteenth time since he had entered the Ninth Circle he felt his jaw bottom out; without even looking, prepared, Senne reached over and once again pushed it shut.

Charon was watching the exchange with great amusement flourishing in his icechip eyes.

“I will never get tired of that reaction,” he said with satisfaction, and Sander was not sure how he could ever have interpreted his voice as being fearsome. It was rich and deep and calming, and it didn’t at all fit with the narrative of  _ scary cloaked guy who takes freshly dead humans across a screaming river in Hell to Purgatory.  _ “How have you been, Senne? This is your fabled Fledgling?”

Sander squinted at him, forgot to be intimidated. “Fabled?”

“Yes, child, fabled,” said Charon, and Sander raised his eyebrows — he was no longer accustomed to being addressed as  _ child _ . “The blood-eyed one, they call you here. It is rare for Fledgling demons to have such strong  _ Strigoi _ genes, and to the knowledge of even the most ancient of us you are the first to present with such a fascinating Trait.”

“Careful or his head with get even bigger than it already is,” said Senne, and when Sander turned to him to growl out a protest he winked. “Relax, Driesen, I’m kidding. This is Charon. He’s gonna be taking us to Lake Lerna, aren’t you, big guy?”

“You assume so much, de Smet,” said Charon, but he was smiling. His teeth were unbearably white. “You have payment?”

Senne scoffed.

“Have I ever come to you unprepared?”

“There is a first time for everything,” said Charon, wholly unconcerned.

“Yeah, well, there’s only room for one first tonight, and that’s Sander’s first trip to Lerna,” said Senne, flipping two perfect circular coins into Charon’s outstretched hand. He was so smooth when it came to sleight of hand; Sander never had time to see his movements when he wanted to conceal them, and in his early soul-dead days as a Fledgling Senne had spent hours performing impossible trick after impossible trick just to cajole some sort of emotion from his slate-still face. It worked, it always worked, and the fact that Senne was willing to explain exactly how he did what he did was part of what had made Sander trust him: no secrets lay between them.

“You impress me every time, Senne,” said Charon, the impassiveness of his face a direct juxtaposition to his words. He raised his hand to inspect the coins, found them passable, tucked both into an inner fold of his cloak before nodding his head once in acquiescence. “Passage to Lerna is yours. It is the night of the Hydra’s milking, yes?”

“Yes,” said Senne, and as he started towards the boat he jerked his dark head for Sander to follow. “Cancer moon. Particularly prime stage for antics.”

“Indeed it is,” said Charon indulgently. To Sander he added, “I hope you’re ready for this, little one,” but whether he was or not they boarded the small ship and drifted on scoundrelly waters away from the solidness of shore, Charon standing with his unnecessary oar at the front of the boat, shoulders back with the impossible wind sifting through his cloak, his chaotic crow-black hair. Sander glanced behind them, back to the strange hypnotic skyline of Nine’s city center once, drank it in slow like a glass of after-dinner wine. When he turned to face forward again his expression was set, grim.

Senne nudged Sander with his shoulder and the troublemaker smirk on his Maker’s face brought a reflexive grin to Sander’s mouth.

“Nervous?”

Sander scoffed.

“You wish,” he said, pompous, and Senne laughed aloud.

“Let me guess, you laugh in the face of danger?”

“Something like that.”

“Well then,” said Senne, clapping him on the back, “you should find tonight to be  _ hysterical _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm yeah so I was gonna add some more to this chapter but the next bit got a bit long and this seemed like a fitting place to stop - for now ;)
> 
> Wonder how Robbe and Jens are getting to Lake Lerna? Oh dear, how will we ever find out?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which both Robbe and Sander get some education regarding Greek mythology, Sander is too bold for his own good, and unforeseen circumstances occur.

“So where is it?”

Robbe and Jens, cloaked as usual in the Shield, were floating just above the motionless mirror-like surface of Lake Lerna, high alert and anticipatory tension, poised. They’d been able to Warp into literal thin air after checking with the Interworld Department of Travel; all that had been required for permission was an ID card for Robbe and the confirmation that he was, indeed, Jens’s Fledgling.

“I feel like a child,” Robbe had grumbled, shoving the card into his pocket as they turned away from the desk, behind which sat a very prim-looking shapeshifter whose present form was something akin to a middle-aged librarian — a skin that commanded, astonishingly enough, a great deal of respect. “I haven’t needed parental permission since I was eighteen.”

“I’m not your parent, I’m your Elder,” said Jens cheerfully, ruffling Robbe’s feather-soft hair so he squeaked in protest. “And you don’t need my permission, you just need identification so you can’t get in trouble for being somewhere you’re not authorized to be. It’s annoying, but nobody can say shit about it if I’m with you  _ and _ you have a card.”

Robbe rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t your presence alone be enough, majesty?”

Jens gave a little bow, flipped his hood up before they exited the building. “Speak to me again in that disrespectful tone of voice and I’ll revoke your royal privileges, peasant.” He grinned, pulled Robbe to the side, chucked him under the chin. “Stop complaining. Besides, would you really want to go to Lake Lerna for the first time without me?” 

And knowing that Robbe would have nothing to say to that, he drew his Fledgling in close and Warped.

Now, with infuriatingly little effort, Jens was Expanding Robbe’s Shield so it covered twice as much territory as possible; for what must have been the millionth time Robbe found that he could only regard his Elder with awe. In spite of the fact that he was simultaneously Levitating and Manipulating the matter around them, Jens was not currently utilizing even a tenth of his capabilities. 

“Stop it, Robbe, it’s just as impressive that you can Shield and Levitate at the same time,” said Jens, reading him, amused. “I keep telling you, you’re a lot more powerful than you think. Anyway, I don’t know where the Hydra is, it’s probably hiding underwater or in one of its caves. I don’t think it hangs out on the surface unless something draws its attention. The Fates will know how to call for it.”

“And where are they?” Robbe was craning his neck to look around but he could see no sign of them: if the universe’s most powerful sisters were present they were doing an excellent job at remaining hidden. 

“They’ll be here,” said Jens calmly. “Everything in its time, Ijzermans, your human is showing. You don’t always have to be in such a hurry.”

“I know, I know,” said Robbe with a sigh, checking his eagerness with effort. “You know there’s a reason why I’m not usually assigned to cases that have anything to do with patience.”

“Give it a bit,” said Jens. His dark huge eyes were scanning the smooth opaque surface of the lake, alert, excited, and Robbe was bolstered: if Jens, who had seen everything in this world and the next over, could get hyped for this event, it must be something huge. “Every Holy gets there eventually. You have to BE patient in order to be able to MANIPULATE patience.”

Robbe scrunched his nose. “Word choice, Stoffels. That’s not what it says in the  _ Holy Book of Angel Ethics _ .”

“To be able to  _ facilitate optimal circumstances for patience _ , then,” said Jens, grinning, “you absolute brat.” 

“Angels must never step in to manipulate situations except under the most dire of circumstances,” said Robbe, in the dull droning tone of a university professor reciting the specifics of a mathematical equation, “we must only work with the circumstances that we are given to help create optimum feelings of positivity and enlightenment in the human race. Did I pass Angelhood 101 yet or what?”

“Aced it,” said Jens, and as he winked the perfect golden hoop in his earlobe shone. “Star pupil.

When Jens had given Robbe his own personal copy of the Handbook, Robbe had thrown him a skeptical look and laughed aloud.

“The _ Holy Book of Angel Ethics _ ? Is this a real thing?”

Jens had patted him patiently on the head and nodded, little indulgent smirk on his lips. 

“I know,” he said, “it’s kitsch. But we’re required to keep them in our possession, and you’ll consult it a lot in the first century or so of your afterlife. Trust me, it’s useful.”

And, as he always was, he’d been absolutely right. In fact, Robbe had needed to use the handbook only recently, when he had averted the near nuclear disaster in Leningrad. A quick consultation of chapter seventeen, “Angelic Interventions in Human Stupidity”, had confirmed what he’d suspected: when a human was about to make a decision that could greatly detract from life on Earth for centuries to come and an angel was present to intervene, they were perfectly allowed to do so. 

Now Robbe said, grinning:

“Thank God, I studied for days. Can we explore? I’m bored.”

Jens scoffed. “Never satisfied, are you, kid? I take you to Lake Lerna to see the milking of the fucking  _ Hydra  _ and you say  _ I’m bored _ .”

Robbe shoved him, laughing. “Nothing’s happening yet, you asshat, we got here so early. Entertain me.”

“Fine,” said Jens. His eyes were scintillating and Robbe knew he was feigning annoyance. “When the action starts we’re not going to want to be in the middle of the lake anyway, we need to find an alcove to hide in just in case you get distracted and let your Shield down.”

“But it’s okay if we get seen here, right?” Robbe kept his expression neutral, determined not to let on that he was thinking of the Fledgling demon’s face just before he reached out to touch the Shield, how mystified his scarlet eyes had been. “It’s not like Fight Night?”

“No, it’s not like Fight Night,” agreed Jens. “The Shield is more for safety purposes. Lerna is more or less neutral territory, but that means that Unholies and Darks have just as much right to be here as we do, and they’ll definitely show up to see something like this. You’re already an object of interest, Ijzermans, I don’t want more unsavory creatures on your trail.”

There was raw protectiveness in his voice and Robbe basked in it, face glowing; he loved it when Jens went to war for him. “Why? Are you worried I’ll convert to the dark side or something?”

“First of all, that’s not possible and you know it,” said Jens. “Second of all, the less beings that know about your Ability, the better. When you reach full maturity you’re going to be a fucking force to be reckoned with, Ijzermans.”

To hide his pleasure Robbe looked away, out over the water to the surrounding mountains, hunter green overthrown with the silver shadow of the swollen moon. From every angle more and more beings were arriving at the scene: flashes of glimmering light gave away Warp spots and those who could not travel directly to Lake Lerna via teleportation were trickling in from all sides of the water. Lightly he said, “Well. I’ve always wanted to be a secret weapon.”

“Your dreams are coming true, then,” said Jens, and Robbe gleaned from his Elder’s tone of voice that Jens understood exactly how much it meant to him. “Enjoy it. You’ve already got it in you, and you’re only going to get stronger.”

“Thanks, Jens,” said Robbe softly, the gilt flush on his cheeks intensifying. Jens smiled at him.

“Don’t mention it. Let’s go pick a spot before all the good ones fill up.”

With the influx of new spectators the air around the lake was beginning to echo with a hodgepodge of noise: verbal communication in every possible form, the splashing of water from those arriving by boat (and Robbe thought that such beings who chose to use that form of travel were either quite brave, quite stupid, or protected by whatever sort of magic that was theirs to wield, as the water was home to the  _ Hydra _ ), the soft  _ pop _ s that accompanied each Warp. He was stimulated in every possible way, the hair on the back of his neck raised, amulet burning around his neck as he turned his head to take in everything he possibly could. They were sailing along the upper rim of the mountains surrounding the left side of the lake when through the steady undercurrent of noise cut a ferocious shrieking scrape of a roar; not twenty feet in front of them sailed a gigantic dragon, opalescent in color, the rider on its back a dark hulking shape hunched over its neck. Robbe almost fell from the air in shock and as though he had sensed the reaction coming Jens reached out to grab his arm.

“What the  _ hell _ \- ”

“That’s Hesperides,” said Jens, as though discussing the light rain they were due to receive that night. “The dragon tamer. The dragon he’s riding is Aurore. She’s  _ legendary _ , supposedly it took him two decades to get her under control.” 

“Worth it,” said Robbe breathlessly, his eyes tracking the movement of those glorious white wings, how each scale seemed to individually catch its own shard of moonlight. “She’s incredible.”

“She is,” agreed Jens. “I don’t think he’s brought her to a big event like this before, so she must be as tame as she’s going to get for him. He’s a damn show-off.”

“Can you blame him?” Robbe was hypnotized. “I’d take her everywhere. How many dragons does he have?”

“He doesn’t,” said Jens. “No one can ever really  _ keep _ dragons, not as pets, they’re too wild. But Hesperides knows how to call on them when he needs them, and he’s got a long list. Have you recovered enough to relocate?”

“No, but I’m not even sure that I’ve completely recovered from being Turned yet, so I’m used to functioning on a low level of shock at all times,” said Robbe cheerfully. “Let’s go.”

So Jens with a little knowing concession of a smile took the lead, let Robbe hang slightly back from his glow-gold shoulder to keep tabs on their surroundings as they soared confidently around the parameter of the lake. Every minute the moon was higher and higher and it lit their pathway to a small cavern mid-mountain, deep enough for them to skulk back in shadow, but not so much that any other being could hide; it was quite empty throughout. When Jens landed with grace on the stone floor of the cave Robbe thudded down next to him, mouth twisted, confused.

“You call this exploring?”

“Take one look out there and tell me this isn’t the best possible vantage point we could pull without making ourselves Hydra bait,” said Jens, exasperated. He reached out, grabbed Robbe by the collar, pulled him over to the left side of the cave’s opening, both of them reckless standing on the craggy rock that sliced into thin air. “Here. Look.”

So Robbe looked. Below them the unbroken surface of the lake glimmered darkly, bright glow of the moon off the water enhanced by the numerous Warp Sparks still sporadically appearing throughout the air. To either side of them spread the mountains of Lerna, green as summer grass and just as thick with trees that blossomed without cease throughout the strange continuation of Afterlife time. There was not a single inch of water that was not visible from where they stood and Robbe knew that Jens had indeed led them to the most advantageous observation deck in the area.

“One day,” said Jens, examining his perfect thumbnail with badly-concealed smugness, “you’ll realize that I actually do know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, yeah, calm down, your head’s already too big for your shoulders to carry,” said Robbe, elbowing him. “It’ll do you some good not to have a Fledgling that’s up your asshole all the time. Constant adoration gets boring after a while, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know, you’d have to ask Jesus,” said Jens loudly, and Robbe choked on his own saliva.

“Are you  _ allowed  _ — ?”

“Sure,” said Jens, shrugging, “the guy’s been through some of the most extreme shit in history, he’s got a sense of humor like a deadpan comedian. He can take a joke.”

Automatically Robbe reached down, pulled his chain up to his mouth so he could clench his teeth around the medallion dripping from the end.

“And you know this from personal experience, then, huh?”

“Actually, yes,” said Jens. “I’ve had some time to get around. It’s just like how it works with a corporate office on Earth: when you get inducted as a High Tier Angel you make the rounds with all the bigwigs, like you’d meet the CEO after a promotion. Things are different here, Robbe, but they’re the same, really.”

Robbe was contemplating this abstractly, more than half of his brain focused on the unbelievable sight before him, when the entirety of the area went abruptly, heavily silent.

“They’re coming,” said Jens, and even the characteristic nonchalance of his tone was diminished. 

On the opposite side of the lake, at the bottom lefthand corner of the mountain, a muted orange glow appeared in the opening of one of the caves; at the same time, the stillness of the air was smashed by the sudden pickup of the wind. With sharp authority it lifted the previously mirrorlike surface of the water into choppy ocean waves, raced in through the cavern to whirl through Robbe and Jens’s hair, shriek loudly through the nooks and crannies of the mountain. Caged, roused, overwhelmed, Robbe felt like crawling out of his skin; he shuddered and Jens put a quelling hand to the base of his spine. When Robbe looked sideways at his Elder he saw that gooseflesh had risen all over Jens’s arms.

“Does this always happen when the Fates show up somewhere or are they being extra dramatic because tonight is a special occasion?”

“If they feel like making an entrance they’ll be loud about it, yeah,” said Jens. His sun-bright eyes were overflowing, tense anticipation. “If they don’t, they can be as invisible as they want. That weird light at the bottom of the mountain over there? That’s the entrance to the Underworld, kid. The Fates won’t come to Lerna any other way. They want the Hydra to  _ know  _ they’re coming.”

Robbe didn’t see how anything in the vicinity, regardless of whether it was a legendary leviathan or not, could be unaffected by the change in the atmosphere; he felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. The silence that had reigned such a short time ago had once again been overcome by the low roaring buzz of thousands of excited conversations; the entire place felt alive, shocked to verve by the Fates’ announcement of their own arrival. Robbe could not see them, but he felt them, and for the hundredth time since the previous night he was reminded of the Fledgling demon and his unusual ability to Sense.

Across Lake Lerna that dim hellmouth glow, strangely true to the color of the sun at dawn, was intensifying steadily; subdued peach turned to ripe solid tangerine, richer and richer until the hue was almost red. Thick gossamer smoke whorled from the cavern mouth in such a way that it appeared to take concrete shape, and Robbe was squinting into the mess of pigment attempting to separate illusion from truth when from within the fog appeared three very dark but very distinct female figures.

All three women were tall as Amazons, advancing through the smoke like they’d been conjured from a dream, and Robbe supposed that given the nature of his new fantastical existence this idea was not so far off from the truth. One auburn, one dark, one cornsilk blonde, they moved in flawless harmony, a singular entity in three bodies; each of them wore simple dresses, all flowing at the hem and so pure-white the material could not have been spun from anything but spellwork. When they stepped from within the cavern into the awaiting moonlit world they crossed gracefully to stand by the water, silent and pleasantly expressionless at the edge of the lake, observing as they were observed. Prior to the event Robbe had guessed that the Fates would not want to be watched while they went about their difficult task, but now, even from so far away, he could see from the way the women were basking under the gazes of so many curious beings that they were clearly comfortable in the spotlight. 

“I thought they were supposed to be old crones,” whispered Robbe.

“You watched the Disney version of Hercules as a kid, didn’t you, Ijzermans?” said Jens, grinning. “Think again. They have the power to change the destiny of the entire world, did you really think they were gonna let themselves look like hags? Attention whores. All of them.”

“Tell me about them,” said Robbe on a whisper, too fascinated to be annoyed with Jens for digging into his thoughts. His knowledge of mythology expanded with every day that he spent in the Afterlife but he couldn’t imagine a day when he stopped thirsting for knowledge, always seeking, always poking his head into hidden spots. As a human his curiosity would likely have gotten him into trouble had he not learned the art of sneaking at a very young age and as a result he had uncovered much about others who in turn knew very little about him. Maybe the fact that he’d been so stealthy as a human was the reason that now, as an angel, his primary Ability was to Shield. 

“The one on the left they call the Spinner,” said Jens, nodding his head at the auburn-haired woman. Of the three she was adorned most humbly, covered from the neck down with her gleaming hair pinned up in loose, slapdash braids on her regal head. “Clotho. Legend goes that she decides when a mortal will be born, when they’ll die, when important events in their lives will happen - she spins the thread of life, so to speak.”

“So Clotho decided when I would die?”

“She and her sisters had hands in it, yes,” said Jens. “But lots of factors come into play. Things can change at any minute. The Fates lay the foundation, but life...well, life does its thing, you know?”

Robbe nodded, momentarily unable to speak. Jens dropped his dark head onto his Fledgling’s own, knowing.

“I got to pick you as my protege, though, regardless of what the Fates had planned for your life. You’re welcome.”

Robbe smiled. “She doesn’t care what happens to humans after they die?”

“Nah. That’s not the Fates’ territory. There’s a lot more free will involved in the Afterlife.”

“I’ve noticed,” said Robbe. “Continue.”

“The middle sister,” said Jens, indicating the blonde Fate, “is the Alloter, Lachesis. She gets to measure the life that Clotho gives - the length of the thread, if we’re sticking to the metaphor. She decides how long humans will live, so you don’t want to be born on a day when Lachesis is in a bad mood. Most of the time, she’s sweet, but when she’s off she’s supposed to be  _ nasty _ .”

“So the day I was born she must have been furious,” said Robbe. He could not equate the sunshine glow of the middle woman with any sort of negative emotion; she was as gilt as his Shield and twice as beautiful, some sweet misplaced California girl wandering the sky. 

Jens laughed.

“Someone pissed her off. If I had to guess it was probably the third sister, Atropos,” said Jens, “the Inflexible.”

Robbe settled his shifting focus towards the pale dark woman on the right side of the triad. Her face was crystal smooth, carrying all the blank darkness of a sharkeye, and there was an uneven curve to her mouth that reminded him of Milan, but crueler, less playful. There was something about her, some quiet rage that hovered around her like a fine translucent dust, that unsettled him in a way nothing he’d yet seen in the Afterlife had been able to do.

“As I’m sure you have probably guessed by her resemblance to a literal fucking psychopath,” said Jens with great cheer, “Atropos cuts the thread of life, meaning she gets to decide how humans die. And she enjoys it way too much.”

Robbe raised his eyebrows. “If  _ she’s _ in charge of that I’m surprised more people don’t die by violent chainsaw accidents or something.” 

“Clotho and Lachesis keep her in check,” said Jens, “and when he needs to, so does Zeus - he’s their father. But even Atropos is allowed to have her fun sometimes, so that’s when things like  _ mass murder  _ and  _ plague _ occur.”

“Horrifying,” said Robbe, “but not surprising. Have you met them?”

“Never,” said Jens. “Only the highest of the high, in both Lower Earth and Upper Atmosphere, interact with the Fates. So Uriel, Raphael, Beelzebub, Amon, that level of being.”

“Because they’re too good to interact with the rest of us?”

“No,” said Jens simply, “because they’re not part of the Christian sect of the human belief system. Only the most ancient, most powerful beings from each religion or mythology come into regular contact with each other, just to make sure no one’s getting too far off track from believability. I mean, sometimes it happens that there will be accidental or casual interaction, but there would never be a reason for, like, Lucifer to meet with a low-tier demon equivalent in Dutch folklore. Know what I mean?”

“ _ To make sure no one’s getting too far off track from believability _ ?” Robbe’s grin was aporetic, foxlike. “Come on. No one on Earth believes in things like the Fates and the Hydra anymore.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Jens. “You didn’t believe angels existed until you met me, and now you’re one of us.”

*

Having successfully avoided succumbing to the call of the Styx thanks to Senne’s protection spell, the effects of which he was still feeling like a high, Sander leaned at an eager angle against the side of the mountain, honed in on the Fates as they absorbed their welcome. Senne was nothing if not fearless, and he wanted Sander to experience what he  _ insisted _ was the most interesting viewpoint of the event, so they were stationed directly opposite the hellmouth - more or less in the open air.

“You swear they’re not demons,” said Sander dubiously. He was squinting at Atropos, who reminded him of a much fiercer and more terrifying Nemesis; she looked like a recurring nightmare he’d had as a child. 

“Swear,” said Senne, quirking one eyebrow. “They’re some of the most powerful beings in existence, but I wouldn’t classify them as  _ good _ or  _ evil _ . They’re just...necessary. At least to Greek mythology.”

“The dark one scares me,” said Sander flatly. “And not in like a  _ weewoo ghost  _ way. I don’t want to be anywhere near her.”

“Atropos scares me, too,” said Senne, quite matter-of-fact for a demon of his revered status. “If she had it her way, I don’t think a single human would be granted the mercy of a painless or uneventful death. But she keeps things lively, and her sisters keep things orderly, so here we are.”

“They must have let her have a field day with me,” said Sander. His attempt to keep his tone light was impressive but there was a miniscule glitch in his voice that to Senne - who had made Sander’s wellbeing his number one priority for the better part of the past decade - was unmistakable.

“No, Sander,” said the Elder demon gently, pressing the back of his hand to his Fledgling’s cold cheek. “Believe me, you got off easy. Besides, it isn’t only Atropos who decides the way things actually happen. If you were from a region whose primary belief system was grounded in Greek mythology, she’d have had much more say in the way you died, and it wouldn’t have been as physically painless.”

“You’re right,” said Sander, and he shuddered, acidic pain seeping from his voice. “It was all mental.”

“And yet, look how strong you are now,” said Senne, and Sander looked sideways at him, gratitude flickering at the corners of his mouth.

“Because of you.”

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna get all sappy on me right before the milking of the  _ Hydra _ ,” said Senne with mock horror, but he nuzzled briefly into the side of Sander’s neck all the same. “There’s no room for  _ feelings _ at a time like this.”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck off,” said Sander, grinning, teeth grinding down automatically on his lip ring. He’d been Sensing on a mid-to-high level since they’d arrived at Lerna; when the Fates had appeared his awareness had spiked, and he was grateful that Senne had given him the ability to recharge the previous night. “I’m having a hard time believing this is as incredible as you say, there’s nothing even  _ happening _ \- ”

“Yes there is,” said Senne smugly, pushing off from the cliff to stand up straight. “Watch them.”

For the Fates, who appeared to have gathered their fill of the collective curiosity of the lake’s occupants, had begun to ascend steadily into the air. 

Sander stepped forward to join Senne, eyes following the upward path of the sisters, enchanted. They had joined hands and closed their eyes and their lips were moving in unison; at first, Sander thought they were not making a sound, but as he lent all his concentration to his auditory senses he realized that they were chanting, a low incomprehensible drone in the quiet. As they continued to rise into the air the cadence of their voices gathered in volume and Sander could at last make out what they were saying.

“ _ Ex infra, ex silentio, a caelo usque ad centrum, ego te provoco… _ ”

“From below, from silence, from the sky to the center,” repeated Senne in the Common Tongue, before Sander could ask; as a Fledgling, his proficiency in Latin was still lacking. “I challenge you…”

The Fates climbed the sky until they had reached the approximate height of mid-mountain, then floated together to the center of the water with as much ease as though they were strolling on a flat surface. All the while they continued to chant, louder and louder until the sound merged into an animalistic roar: Clotho with her lovely harmonious tenor, Lachesis in luminous soprano, Atropos rounding them off with a monotonous, rusty bass. When they settled at their destination each woman raised her arms above her head, threw her face to the star-freckled indigo canopy above, and the entire premises seemed to tremble.

“ _ EX INFRA, EX SILENTIO, A CAELO USQUE AD CENTRUM!” _

Every nerve ending in Sander’s body began to thrum; the wind declaring the Fates’ arrival had long since calmed, but his hair ruffled as though caught in a mild gust. Beneath his planted stance on the ground he felt a muted rumbling and reached a hand out for Senne only to find that his Maker had met him halfway.

“ _ EGO TE PROVOCO! EGO TE PROVOCO! EGO TE PROVOCO!” _

Senne’s hand was warm, his grip like a beartrap; Sander wanted to climb the mountain, howl at the moon, break out of his skin and be everywhere at once.

“Can you Sense it,” Senne breathed, husk in his voice,, and Sander growled out “ _ yes _ ,” and then the surface of the lake split in two.

The Lernean Hydra was far more fearsome than any spoken tale or written legend could effectively capture; it was something that one had to witness in person to fully understand its impact. Gargantuan beyond description in any language Sander knew, it dripped in scales and talons and uneven edges, its nine flailing heads breaching the water one by one as it rose to answer the call of the Fates. The roar that emitted from each of its bladed mouths was the product of a night terror, all ferocity and rage, and the sound scraped Sander’s spine like a rake across a chain-link fence. Upon first glance he would have named the color of its scaled skin  _ black _ but as the platinum moon illuminated more and more of its impossibly gigantic body he saw shades of dark green: hunter, jungle, chartreuse. Its heads were draconian, lizard-like, serpentine all at once; no two of them identical, each with different-colored eyes and spikes and horns. Simply for its sheer size it should have been clumsy but the orchestration of its heads was magnificent; it was constantly in motion, and the instant one head vacated airspace another swept in to take its place. Sander had never seen something so horrifically wondrous in his existence. 

“ _ Amai _ ,” he spat out, snake-charmed, and Senne  _ mmmmm _ ed heavily in response. 

“Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

“Senne, it’s  _ beautiful _ ,” said Sander with emphasis, and without even looking he could sense Senne’s blade-tipped grin. 

“I think so too,” said Senne, and then the Hydra was shrieking again, causing them both to fall silent. Miles above, a shadow across the moon, Hesperides and his opalescent dragon were circling; when the Hydra screamed she roared in answer and the ferocious noise made Sander’s nerve endings burst into song.

“Does it communicate with itself?”

“Yes,” said Senne, “or at least, it’s thought to. Watch the way it moves - it’s too coordinated not to be aware of itself, you see what I’m saying?”

“And if it loses a head,” said Sander, watching the Hydra’s many heads bob and weave as it struggled to reach the Fates, who were now beginning to circle it in midair, “it can just grow itself a new one?”

“Exactly. Lose one, create two,” said Senne, grinning. “It would be impossible to kill even if things could die in the afterlife, although Heracles will tell you he succeeded back in ancient times, and this Hydra is just a phantom of the one he killed in Greece.”

“What a bitch,” said Sander automatically, and Senne laughed aloud.

“Heracles is nothing next to the Fates.”

With speed that transformed them into little more than three white blurs the women darted in and out of the tree-trunk forest of Hydra necks; Lachesis and Atropos wove dangerously close to the mouths of the beast, distracting it like a matador to a bull while Clotho used the opportunity to strike in its blind spots. No lasting harm would actually come to the Hydra, Senne had explained to Sander as they’d sailed along on their little pleasure cruise with Charon, but on every third full moon its venom reached full potency and the Fates would do what was necessary to replenish their stores. Hydra venom was extremely versatile and could be used not only in the design of human life but in the potions and spells they used on a daily basis. It was rumored, Senne said, that Hydra venom was one of the key ingredients in the concoction the Fates brewed to keep themselves young. 

“You’d think there would be a much easier way to achieve eternal youth around here,” Sander had said. “I mean, you’re  _ how _ ancient now? And you barely look older than me.” 

Senne had chuckled.

“Angels and demons got lucky. Not all beings in the afterlife have it so easy. A lot of species have to work to stay looking like this.”

Watching them now, Sander didn’t envy the Fates their task. They were as nimble as cats, sure and swift with their dizzying movements, but despite the Hydra’s less than advantageous size it was just as coordinated and with impressive skill it dodged the Fates again and again. Around the lake its roars of frustration echoed but the noise was nearly smothered by the collective bloodlust screams of the onlooking crowd, at least half of whom were hidden either in caves or the thick zucchini-green forest. It was Fight Night amplified by a thousand and Sander was so on edge his blood was hot; his eyes were streaming more thickly than normal, which tended to happen when he was overly excited, and when Senne glanced sideways at him to gauge his reaction he caught a sniff of the penny-scented air, snarled.

“Down boy,” said Sander, smirking without taking his eyes from the hurricane motion of the Hydra’s heads. As she dove in and around the middling three heads Atropos was shouting something in her swordsharp voice; Lachesis from the left side of the beast was answering her in kind, but Clotho was nowhere to be seen. 

“I fed last night, relax,” said Senne, shoving him sideways. “But you smell delicious, like joy. You love this.”

“I do,” said Sander, and he looked sideways at his Maker to beam, the inverted cross in his ear glinting off a moonray. “This is fucking amazing, Senne.”

In the sky three furious blasts of cyclonic light exploded from each of the Fates’ hands at once, collided in separate places against the Hydra’s innermost head; knocked off balance, the monster screamed in shocked pain. The head stationed closest to the upper caverns lost control of its neck briefly and smashed like a serpentine bulldozer directly into the side of the mountain. 

Jens and Robbe, whose excellent viewpoint was, regrettably, in direct line with the path of destruction, leapt without a thought from the edge of the cave before they were flattened by the beast’s gigantic neck; the angle at which it landed forced them apart, both of them jumping in opposite directions to avoid getting crushed. At the same time, Sander and Senne, directly below the crashsite, had to scramble out of the way of a gigantic rockpile that upon impact had been torn from the mountain’s edge. Sander darted left, Senne took off to his right, and it took a moment for Sander to realize that Senne was not beside him. When he did, careening at full tilt back towards the treeline, he turned his head frantically to try to ensure Senne’s safety; as a result he was not paying attention to what might lie before him and slammed forcibly into something warm and solid. The something - or more accurately, some _ one _ \- coughed out “oof”; Sander had just enough time to grab hold of the being’s arm for some sort of balance before he was tumbling gracelessly to the forest floor. For a moment he simply remained where he had fallen, splayed half atop the being he’d smashed into, recovering from the immense overload of stimuli. Then he groaned aloud and rolled onto his back.

“ _ Focking  _ Jesus _. _ ”

The answering voice that came from the body sprawled haphazardly next to him was unmistakable; since last he’d heard it, Sander had been listening to it replay, hazy and dreamlike, in the forefront of his mind.

“ _ Sander _ ?”

Stunned for the third time in less than two minutes, Sander whipped his head around to get visual confirmation. Sure enough, Jen’s beautiful Fledgling angel was lying inches from Sander’s side, arms thrown over his lovely russet head, his skin emitting that faint glittering glow that had so captivated Sander at Fight Night.

With difficulty Sander closed his wide-open mouth.

“ _ Engel _ ?” And then, smugly, because it pleased him more than he could articulate: “You remembered my name.”

“Of course the fuck I did,” said the angel. Up close his eyes were just as gilt as his skin; everything about him shone, more vibrant than any constellation Sander had ever seen. “You’re the only demon I’ve ever met. Kind of a standalone occasion.”

“Wrong,” said Sander cheerfully. Now that he’d settled a bit he was regaining himself, the learned cockiness that came with endless external validation of beauty. “You met my Maker, too. Do you remember his name as well, or am I special?”

“Senne,” said the angel, smirking. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Aw, and here I thought I’d made an impression,” said Sander, pouting. He’d assumed the effect would be diminished when he was Turned — bleeding eyes didn’t exactly fit with the image of  _ sad puppy _ — but when he felt up to abusing his power he’d managed to wield his physical charm quite well in his afterlife. The angel, however, appeared to be quite unfazed. 

“I bet you did,” he said indulgently, and then he sat up, looking around them, confusion on his freckle-starred face. “Wait, where _ is  _ your Maker? Shouldn’t you be with him?”

“I was, until we got separated by some falling rocks,” said Sander. Guiltily he realized he’d forgotten about Senne for a moment and climbed to his feet, peering through the edge of the forest like Senne might be on the other side waiting for him. “And you? Surely Daddy didn't let you come here alone.”

The angel’s eyes when he met Sander’s own were arctic. Without looking away, he stood, and though he was shorter than Sander by a considerable margin, his confidence made him positively  _ regal _ . “Don’t forget who you’re talking to, demon.”

“That’s a little hard, actually,” said Sander, licking habitually at his lip ring, fascinated by the imperial expression on the angel's face, “when you won’t even tell me your name.”

The angel hesitated; his soft shining gaze dropped abruptly to follow the movement of Sander’s tongue. Sander smirked, sensing his toehold.

“Come on,  _ engel _ , you know  _ my  _ name. Technically, if we’re going by Biblical lore, you can use it to command me, and that hardly seems fair, does it?”

“You don’t think so?” The angel’s eyebrows bridged; in the background Sander could hear the Hydra screaming, but it was merely distant interference at this point. “Here’s the thing. I don’t need to know your name to command you. I’m an angel, you’re a demon. The hierarchy is  _ kind of  _ skewed in my favor here.”

Sander was warm everywhere. “Tip the scales back a little my way, then.”

Robbe regarded him, distracted; Sander’s eyes were dripping at twice the velocity from the other night and despite all that black and metal and gray every bit of him was radiant. 

“You know that if I tell you my name,” he said patiently, “it won’t even the playing field.”

Sander took a step forward; the air was on fire but Robbe felt spidery chills climbing the length of his spine. 

“I have other reasons for wanting to know.”

“Such as?”

“Well,” said Sander, with a total lack of abashment, “I can’t keep thinking of you as  _ the beautiful angel with the golden Shield _ , it gets a bit long after a while. I could stand to cut it down to one word. You know, to save time.”

Robbe had been ready for him and he didn’t miss a single beat.

“Very smooth,” he said, “but time isn’t a luxury for us, demon. We have all of it in the world to play with and more. In fact, you could probably stand to add  _ more _ adjectives when you think of me. It’ll keep things interesting, don’t you think?”

This time when Sander’s tongue flicked out to shift his lip ring aside he ran it the length of his bottom lip; with nearly as much effort as the Fates were spending upon the Hydra, Robbe kept his gaze locked to the demon’s insolent scarlet eyes.

“You know,” said Sander, all casual, “that’s not a bad idea.  _ Beautiful _ doesn’t really cover it. If I tell you what other adjectives I’d use to describe you, then will you tell me your name?”

The angel pursed his lips but there was powerless, exasperated amusement in his ochre eyes and Sander felt triumph slashing through his chest for it.

“Depends. I’d choose my words carefully if I were you.”

“Let’s see,” said Sander, lips parted half-smiling as he ran his gaze slow down the angel’s body. “I’d start with  _ surprising _ .”

“Did you expect me to come packaged in white robes with wings and a halo?” The angel was grinning now. “I don’t see you with horns.”

“I’m not talking about  _ that _ ,” said Sander. “I’m saying you don’t talk to me like other angels talk to demons. That  _ don’t forget who you’re talking to  _ bullshit doesn’t feel like you at all, it feels like learned behavior. I don’t think it’s in your nature to be rude, pretty angel.

Robbe flushed; instead of turning rosy red, angels took on a heavy mist-like glow when they were embarrassed, and he knew without having to look that he was illuminating the air around him. Sander’s eyes were massive, enchanted; he watched Robbe like he was the only thing Sander could see in color, like he had never before seen the ocean and Robbe was the incoming tide. His awe was disconcerting in the most wonderful of ways.

Robbe said with a great deal more steadiness than he felt, “That’s how you think angels talk to demons? Rudely?”

“I don’t know how  _ angels _ , collectively, talk to us,” said Sander, voice a breath as he took Robbe in, that hypnotizing gilded flush. “I just know how  _ you _ talk to  _ me _ .  _ Amai, engel _ , if this is how you look when you blush, I’m never going to stop trying to embarrass you.”

To his chagrin Robbe could feel his flush intensifying; he was hot all over and his cheeks had warmed to the approximate temperature of desert air in summer. “You act like you’ll keep getting opportunities.”

“Who says I won’t?” Sander took a step closer; Robbe tensed, high alert, but it wasn’t fear that made his spine straighten. “But we’re off-topic. I’d call you... _ magnificent. Ethereal. Otherworldly. _ ”

“I think you’re a kissass, demon,” said Robbe, laughing through his nose in reluctant amusement as he squirmed under the pindown of Sander’s blunt intrusive gaze. 

“And I think  _ you’re  _ afraid to use my name,” said Sander, fearless, the smirk that split his face all devil. His eyes were  _ pouring  _ blood now, but the sudden flood didn’t seem to faze him; before the flow could spill below his cheekbone, it evaporated into nonexistence _.  _ “What’s the matter,  _ engel _ ? You don’t want to know what it’s like to command me?”

“I told you,” said Robbe, and it was his turn to smirk. “I don’t need your name to do that. What the fuck kind of name for a demon is  _ Sander,  _ anyway? I thought you were all called, like,  _ Belphegor _ or  _ Beelzebub  _ or some shit.”

Sander laughed out loud. “All the weird names were already taken by the time I got here. No,  _ engel _ , new demons keep our given names, just like you fancy bastards in the Upper Atmosphere. Keeps things from getting confusing, I guess, we can’t all be walking around called  _ Valak _ or soon enough that would be as common as being named  _ Willem  _ or  _ Nathan  _ on Earth.”

Robbe furrowed his brow; the names were oddly region-specific.

“Wait,” he said slowly, in Dutch. “Where were you from? Before you, you know. Got here.”

The demon’s bloody eyes waxed wide. In the same language he replied,

“On Earth I lived in Belgium. Near Antwerp. Senne too, forever ago; that’s where he found me. And you?”

Robbe was stupefied.

“Fuck,” he said, and by now all the bashfulness had been effectively shocked out of him. “ _ I’m _ from Antwerp.”

Sander studied him; his face held no hint of jest or impertinence and the difference in him when his walls were down was  _ stark _ . Beneath the blood and ghoul-pale skin and metal Robbe could see the vivid human he must once have been and wondered abstractly what had happened to bring him to the fate he was living out today. Before Sander could speak the low-level noise of the tempestuous war raging above the lake intensified; there came a three-voiced scream of victory, followed immediately by a sickening  _ squelch  _ and an anguished roar from the Hydra. Robbe did not immediately understand what was happening until the spectators who had camped out on the bank of the lake immediately in front of their little section of the forest came flooding in through the trees, clearing the way for Atropos, who had landed on the shore with her back to them. She was locked in ruthless combat with one of the monster’s many heads and dark liquid was spraying everywhere, staining the pure alabaster of her dress. Robbe could not see her face but he was not entirely sure that he wanted to. 

In Robbe’s head, Jens:

_ Where the fuck are you, Ijzermans? Are you okay? _

_ I’m in the forest, right behind where Atropos just landed -  _

_ SHIELD. NOW.  _

The violent urgency in Jens’s voice was more terrifying than anything Robbe had seen that night and suddenly he was hyperaware of the uncomfortable proximity of Atropos and the Hydra, a kaleidoscopic wreck of color and sound to his immediate left. “ _ What? Why? _

_ Just do it. Get as far away from them as you can. Warp if you have to, I don’t care, I’ll find you. NOW, Robbe. _

With his dark unruly eyebrows slightly creased Sander was scrutinizing his face; Robbe did not stop to think. Without pause, the action as innate as breathing now, he threw out the Shield so it covered Sander as well as himself, and he was just reaching to grab Sander’s wrist but stopped before he could make contact, bulldozed.

_ He’d burst into flames if he ever tried to touch me _ .

Sander’s eyes were gigantic as he looked around them; the gold of Robbe’s Shield on his vampiric skin was exquisite and he’d have paused to marvel at the sight if he’d been able to feel anything but rationalized panic. “ _ Engel,  _ are you  _ Shielding  _ me?”

“Yes. Can I touch you?”

For an ephemeral moment Sander’s entire system ceased to function, but he recovered magnificently. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Robbe was in overdrive, defcon five, too adrenalized to be taken aback. “No, you fucking asshole, I mean because you’re a demon. Will it burn if I touch you?”

“Do you think I have a fucking clue?” Sander was catching on to the urgency in his voice now, his body language. “What’s going on?”

“We need to get away from here, now.” Robbe’s fingers were hovering a millimeter from Sander’s arm, his gaze unblinking and severe as he looked back and forth between Sander’s streaming eyes. “Can I?”

Sander didn’t think, didn’t care if his flesh melted away from the angel’s touch, would have followed him into the midst of the Milking if he had asked. “Yes.”

So Robbe clamped a hand around Sander’s forearm and Warped. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up taking a slightly different turn than I anticipated, but I've gotta say...I like where this is going better than my original plan. :D Thanks for your lovely comments and patience, y'all, I appreciate you all so much in elk universum <3 <3 <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which important conversations finally happen.

Robbe had no destination in mind; the only thought in his head when he closed his eyes and leapt into nothingness was  _ not here not here not here  _ on a loop. When he felt his feet slam into solidity he was not shocked to find that his brain had subconsciously taken him to the nearest estimated safe place: an alcove at the top of the mountain, far out of reach of the Hydra’s many heads.

Beside him Sander was frozen, shoulders braced; clearly he’d been expecting the worst, but no part of him seemed to have gone up in smoke. The realization that Robbe’s touch did not act as holy water on his skin scampered across Sander’s face just as Robbe had the same thought and he pulled his hand back, smirking.

“Don’t say a fucking word, demon.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Sander, but his grin was positively indecent. “Interesting Warp choice, did you plan this?”

“No,” admitted Robbe, “but it’s not bad. Jens should have brought us here from the start.”

“Even Daddy makes mistakes, I guess,” said Sander with no malice. He walked over to the edge of the cavern mouth, peered down at the madness below. “You can still see from here. But I’d rather risk it and be closer to the action. What happened down there, anyway? Why’d you panic?”

Robbe was about to tell him about Jens’s interference, but hesitated; if Sander knew Jens was fully telepathic, the demon would likely begin to guard his thoughts, thus removing the potential advantage of having unfettered access to his mind. Robbe had absolutely no interest in giving this possibility up and he chose his lie without a second thought.

“Hydra venom is supposed to be really fucking dangerous,” he said, without a hitch in his voice to indicate untruth. “We were too close. Atropos doesn’t care who or what she hurts and the venom was spraying everywhere. We weren’t safe.”

“But,  _ engel _ ,” said Sander, turning from the precipice to study him, “nothing can happen to us. We’re immortal.”

“Does that stop you from feeling pain?”

Sander’s face wiped; when he blinked Robbe caught a flash of bitterness in his crimson eyes. 

“Never.”

“Exactly,” said Robbe. “Who knows what it would have done to us if we’d gotten hit with it. Plus I don’t think Atropos is very fond of angels. I actually thought she was one of yours at first.”

“One of mine, huh,” said Sander, and he grinned brutishly, the metal in his lip gleaming. “So that’s what you think? That demons  _ aren’t fond _ of angels?”

Robbe scoffed. “Come on, it’s not exactly a secret that we’re mortal enemies. Like, to anyone. We’ve probably got the record for the most long-standing rivalry of all time.”

“That’s a generalization, though,” said Sander. “I don’t think my Maker sees yours as an enemy. They even used to be  _ friends _ . They just ended up on opposite sides of the afterlife, that’s all.”

“But we exist to make each other’s jobs really difficult,” said Robbe, genuinely surprised. “You encourage humans to give in to their worst impulses, and we try to redirect them so they don’t cause too many problems, so we’re always getting in your way. Our end goals are completely opposite.”

“Are they?” Sander’s face was impassive. “We all wind up in more or less the same place. All that stuff about  _ screaming and torture and pain _ in hell is complete bullshit. There are no endlessly burning souls in the pit of fire, _ engel _ . Humans reincarnate, they spend time in Purgatory, they change form or become one of your kind or mine. Angels and demons exist to balance each other out. Otherwise life on Earth would be boring as fuck.”

Robbe was watching the passion in Sander’s eyes and found that he could detect no flaw in his logic. “So you... _ don’t  _ hate us?”

“From the little that I know, because Senne gets grumpy as fuck when I ask him about it,” said Sander, “demons mostly don’t like angels because you guys have a  _ gigantic  _ superiority complex. You think you’re better than us. We’re not supposed to interact with you because we’re the lowest of the low and you’re the highest of the high, or whatever. But those things don’t mean the same here as they do on Earth. That’s just — how it’s always been. And we don’t  _ only _ encourage lives of total hedonism, you know. We just like humans to have a bit more fun than you do. Sometimes that leads to population control. It evens out.”

Robbe bridged one auburn eyebrow, skeptical, but Sander was making more sense than he wanted to admit and he could have listened to him talk for hours, the baritone cadence of his voice, how it rumbled when he was amused. “So you’re saying things like  _ murder _ and  _ war _ are fun.”

“No,” said Sander, gazing out over the dark lake below, where the Milking was still going on in full force. “But to be fair, I don’t know much about wrath, that’s for Sathanus and his lessers to deal with. It’s not my area of specialty.”

“No? And what is?”

Sander chuckled, low, ran his tongue luxuriantly over his lower lip. Looked back at the angel and sucked his piercing into his mouth.

“You really wanna know?”

The angel gave him a patronizing look. Clearly he was trying to appear stern, but the effect was positively adorable, and Sander couldn’t stop the grin that quirked at the sides of his mouth in response. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”

“Well,” said Sander, teasing, “you’re supposed to be the purest form of being that exists. I don’t think your innocent little angel brain could handle it.”

“Fuck off,” said the angel, mouth open, all indignation. “You have no idea what I’ve seen. Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

Sander raised his dark eyebrows. 

“All right then,” he said, shifting so he was facing the angel square on, toe to toe as they gazed at each other. He could not believe that half an hour ago he’d thought the most interesting thing in the universe was the Hydra; even the fantastical monsters of his childhood dimmed in comparison to the Holy being before him, all his gold and light and splendor. “Do you know about the Seven Princes?”

“Yes,” said the angel. There was a considerable height difference between them; they were now standing so near to one another he had to tip his russet head back to meet Sander’s eyes. His face was scrawled over with defiance and nonchalance and Sander found him mesmerizing. “I know some things about demonology, I’m not an idiot.”

“Relax,” said Sander, grinning. “I didn’t say you were. So every Prince has dominion over a specific one of the deadly sins. Seven Princes, seven sins, seven different dominions. Got it?”

“It’s the same for us,” said the angel. His eyes were so bright they could have been reflecting flame. “Seven virtues, seven High Angels. Easy.”

“Perfect,” said Sander, smirking, “then I’m sure you know that every new demon is assigned to one of the sins at their Turning. By default they answer to the Prince in charge of their given sin, so demons of wrath answer to Sathanus, demons of envy answer to Leviathan, the list goes on.”

“Okay,” said the angel, “excellent summary, demon. But now’s the part where you tell me which one is yours.”

Impressed, Sander worked his tongue habitually over his lip ring. 

“Aren’t angels supposed to be the masters of patience or something?”

“Some of us, yeah,” said the angel, smirking as he repeated Sander’s words, “but to be fair, I don’t know much about patience. That isn’t my  _ area of speciality. _ ”

Furious heat flooded abruptly into Sander’s lower stomach; at the same time, the blood falling steadily from his eyes increased from a soft slow drip to a steady pour. The effect was akin to watching a faucet being switched on. 

“Oh I see,” he said, voice a husk. “Now who’s insolent, huh?”

Robbe felt the change in the air, saw the quick strike of hunger overtake Sander’s expression, shuddered. The cave felt impossibly small and when he tried to speak he had to clear his throat over a voice that did not want to emerge.

“Still you.”

Sander laughed, looked away.

“You’re full of shit,  _ engel _ .”

“You don’t seem to hate it,” said Robbe, eyes glinting, warm everywhere as that telltale loud gold flush rose to the surface of his skin. “Go on.”

“I answer,” said Sander roughly, reaching out to loop a finger through the chain trailing down Robbe’s chest, “to Asmodeus.”

Robbe studied him, frozen, focused on the strange press of Sander’s skin to his own. “I’m gonna need you to be more specific.”

“I thought you knew demonology,” said Sander, playful mocking as he pulled at the length of Robbe’s chain. “You disappoint me. By the way, this isn’t a cross, is it? I’ve been doing so well not going up in flames.”

In spite of himself Robbe huffed out a laugh, rolled his eyes to the slate cavern ceiling. “You’re safe. It’s my mother’s patron saint. But don’t give me that  _ I thought you knew demonology  _ shit until you can name all seven of the High Angels.”

“Fair enough,” said Sander. He drew the medallion up to his face, examined it, placed it back gently against the trophy gleam of Robbe’s skin. Dropped pretense and mapped a forefinger slowly across the starkness of his collarbone before he pulled his hand away. “Lust,  _ engel.  _ I’m a demon of lust.”

Robbe thought he was going to explode.

“Of course the fuck you are.”

Sander was endlessly amused; Robbe was endlessly wrecked for it. “That doesn’t surprise you?”

“Not at all.”

“Why not?”

Robbe could not say what he was thinking, could not even admit it to himself, but he knew the implications were present in the way his eyes always lingered when he watched Sander’s tongue move over his lip ring, how his skin was constantly edged in gilt when Sander was teasing him. “It just makes sense, that’s all.”

Sander laughed; the angel was uncomfortable and it was clear as a scent, he could have put his tongue out like a serpent and tasted it in the air between them. “That’s a bullshit answer,  _ engel _ , come on. Why aren’t you surprised?”

The angel looked away.

“Well, you already said you didn’t know much about wrath, and if envy was your thing you wouldn’t have given yourself away by talking about it,” he said, careful. “You’re definitely not assigned to _greed_ or _sloth_ or _gluttony._ Maybe pride, but I don’t think so, you don’t give off the vibe. So...that leaves one more option.”

“And how did you come to decide that I don’t fit the profile of any of those sins?”

The angel sighed.

“I really have to spell everything out for you, don’t I?”

“Of course not,” said Sander, falsely insulted, jewel-eyed. “I just want to hear your opinion, that’s all.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“Maybe not to you, but believe it or not, I’ve been called much worse.  _ Insufferable  _ is pretty high on the totem pole of adjectives.”

In spite of himself Robbe chuckled. “Are you like this all the time?”

Smirking, Sander leaned slightly in; they were now so close Robbe could see each individual droplet of blood as it formed at the corners of Sander’s eyes. “Seems to me like you want to find out.”

“I told you,” said Robbe, swallowing, “that you were still the insolent one. Back up, demon, I’m a Holy. By default that means you have to leave room for Jesus when you stand next to me.”

But he didn’t move, and it was Sander’s turn to bark out a shocked little laugh. 

“Fuck, I didn’t know angels were so sassy.”

“Yeah, well,” said Robbe, a slow little half-smile curling like a crescent across his lips. “Just because I gained a halo doesn’t mean I lost my sense of humor.”

Sander’s gaze dropped obviously to Robbe’s mouth. “You definitely haven’t.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t say that was a compliment.”

“It was, though,” said Robbe, cocksure for once. “You didn’t know angels were so sassy? I didn’t know demons were so beautiful, Sander, and that’s why it makes sense that your sin is lust. You must be able to walk into a room and command it.”

Sander hadn’t expected it and Robbe was gratified to see a mottled dark flush staining like an inkblot across his marble-pale cheeks.

“And yet it’s you who has the power to command me,” he said, rough. “ _ Engel _ .”

Robbe set his mouth and made his decision before he even consciously knew what he was doing. 

“Robbe,” he said, low. “My name is Robbe. And my virtue is chastity.”

Within an extraordinarily small window of time Sander’s face went from flustered to soft to positively  _ indecent. _

“Robbe,” he said, all wonder, like it was a prayer. And then, “You’re kidding.”

Robbe shook his head; he knew exactly what was coming, it was why he’d said  _ of course the fuck you are _ when Sander had informed him that he was a demon of lust. “Afraid not.”

“I guess it  _ is  _ true what they say, then,” said Sander with not a little wonder. “That opposites attract. So are you some sort of prude, or what?”

Robbe’s mouth dropped; he was sick of getting wrongfooted, sick of glowing gold with flush, constantly bothered. “Why are you so quick to assume that I’m innocent?”

“You’re an  _ angel _ ,” said Sander, and the excited fervor in his voice was sharp as a sword, “of  _ chastity _ . That’s about as pure as it gets.”

“By biblical standards, yeah,” said Robbe. “But I’m pretty sure you know by now that nothing’s like it’s supposed to be here. Why are you bleeding so much?”

Sander reached up automatically to swipe at his cheek; his fingers came away drenched in bold wet claret. “Why are you  _ blushing _ so much?”

“Nice try,” said Robbe, firm; he understood that Sander was deflecting and he wasn’t about to let him get away with it. “I asked first.”

Sander sucked at his piercing, met Robbe’s gaze. The smile that slashed open his mouth was lethargic, impious, ragged at the edges; Robbe understood how it might be impossible to tell him  _ no _ .

“It happens when my emotions are high,” said Sander. “So when I’m excited, or nervous —”

“You get nervous?”

“You don’t?”

“Not like I did on Earth,” said Robbe. “But yeah. Sometimes. Are you nervous now?”

“Are you?”

“Can you stop answering a question with a question?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” said Sander, “Robbe the angel. And you were giving me shit about my name?”

“Fuck off,” said Robbe, but his multihued eyes glowed with humor.

“You swear like a demon,” said Sander. His body language was hot and loud and Robbe was magnetized by him, yanked closer like a hapless fish on a reel, stripped of resistance. “Maybe you’re not so pure after all.”

“I do not  _ swear like a demon _ ,” said Robbe, indignant. “Angels aren’t fucking  _ schoolmarms _ , but there are certain things we don’t say. Apparently it’s not a good look to be using the Lord’s name in vain in the UA.”

“That’s a shame. There’s just something so satisfying about saying  _ goddamn _ and  _ Jesus Christ _ ,” said Sander, leaning down so there was not an inch of personal space left for Robbe to claim. “Especially in bed. But  _ you _ wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

Robbe balked; for the first time, Sander had shocked him into speechlessness. He was trying to formulate a coherent reply, infuriated by the look of triumph in Sander’s cherry-gushing eyes, when Jens’s voice exploded in his head.

_ Where the fuck are you?  _

Robbe blinked, dropped his eyes to force his own hand; he could not pay attention to Jens if Sander’s face was the foremost thing in his mind. Dimly he registered that a decent amount of time had passed since Jens had last tried to contact him and worry blossomed abruptly in his chest. 

_ A cave. Top of the mountain. Are you okay? Where are YOU _ ?

_ Stay where you are. I’m coming now. Are you with the Fledgling demon? _

Robbe choked on his own spit; Sander was watching him with a shrewd kind of scrutiny that suggested he had correctly interpreted the look on Robbe’s face to be more than angelic outrage at demonic insolence. _Am_ _I -_ _WHAT?!_

_ I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t move. _

Robbe looked away, looked back, mastered himself.

“That, demon,” he said, with as much dignity as he could gather while he was so near in color to the glowing sun he could have been radioactive, “is crossing the line.”

“So I was right, then,” said Sander in soft satisfaction, lapping unconsciously at his bottom lip. “You  _ are _ innocent.”

“You have no idea what I am,” said Robbe, warring with himself; he wanted to be insulted and outraged and all of the other various appropriate emotions he should have been experiencing, but that irksome tension between them was  _ uproarious  _ and his lower stomach was warm as a howling fireplace. 

“I’d love to find out.”

“I bet you would,” said Robbe, the haughtiness he’d assumed earlier returning in full force out of habit, “but that’s nothing but a shame for you, demon, because it’ll never fucking happen.”   


“That’s funny,” said Sander, fully unconcerned, “because if there’s one thing I’ve learned since I made it to the Afterlife, it’s that we don’t use the word  _ never  _ here.”

And then, at once, Jens and Senne exploded into the middle of the cavern. They oriented themselves, looked at Robbe and Sander standing so near to one another at the cave mouth, looked at one another. The nature of the gaze was very much akin to parental exasperation and Robbe had the presence of mind to understand that it would have been hilarious had they been in any other situation; as it stood he knew he was very likely to receive a stern lecturing when Jens got him alone. 

“Jesus fuck,” said Senne loudly, as simultaneously Jens barked, “Bloody fucking Lucifer.”

There was a slight pause. 

“Watch your mouth,” said Senne.

“You first,” said Jens, and they swapped a glance full of reluctant amusement, truce. Then Senne said, turning his attention back to Robbe and Sander:

“Driesen, what the fuck are you doing with him? How did you guys even  _ find  _ each other?” 

Sander raised his hands, proclaiming innocence. “We didn’t. We ran into each other by the edge of the lake.”

“Literally  _ ran _ ,” said Robbe, looking at Jens. “It’s not like we were  _ looking _ for each other, how would I even know he was here?”

“Yeah, and how did  _ you guys  _ meet up?” Sander shifted sideways, pretzel-twisted his arms over his chest; in the process he bumped gently into Robbe’s side and whether it was deliberate or not they both started at the contact, electrified. “You can’t be upset with me for hanging out with an angel when you are, too, Senne, come on.”

“We are not  _ hanging out _ ,” said Jens sharply. “We ran into each other trying to find you. This place is a lot bigger than it looks.”

“And somehow, it’s also a lot smaller,” said Senne, pointed. To Sander he added, “Are you okay? You’re not hurt?”

“No,” said Sander, softening. “Are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Senne. “Just worried about you. How did you get all the way up here? Why didn’t you just Warp home?”

“I’d like to know the same, actually,” said Jens, looking at Robbe. 

“I don’t know,” said Robbe truthfully. “Atropos was right next to us and I just panicked and went to the first place my mind landed on.”

“Wait a second,” said Senne. “How close were you to her?”

“A couple of feet,” said Sander, shrugging. “She was fighting with one of the heads and landed on the shore of the lake right in front of us. Why?”

“Because she’s ruthless and likes to torture for sport, that’s why,” said Jens, as Senne nodded. “Even if she was occupied with the Hydra, there’s no predicting her. If any being got in her way, she wouldn’t give a damn, she’d take you down in the process.”

“So that’s why you were worried,” said Robbe slowly under his breath, and Jens looked at him and twisted his mouth.

“You’re okay?”

Robbe nodded. “And you?”

“No harm, no foul,” said Jens, and grinned. “Just in disbelief that somehow you managed to find this fucking Fledgling demon  _ again _ .” 

“I’m a magnet, what can I say,” said Sander, brash, cheerful, and Senne rolled his eyes.

“You’re hopeless.”

“Learned from the best.”

“Don’t push it, moron. Wait, though,” said Senne, slow dawn of understanding rising in his eyes, “Baby angel. You brought Sander with you here when you Warped?”

“Well, yeah,” said Robbe, confused. “Atropos got close, and I just grabbed him. He might have gotten hurt.”

“But why would that matter to  _ you _ ?” Senne’s eyes were wide, genuinely curious, befuddlement obvious on his face. “Why would you care what happens to him? Angels don’t give a fuck about us.”

Beside him, Robbe felt rather than saw Sander turn his head to study him; purposely he kept his eyes trained forward, and he was about to reply when Jens did it for him.

“Whenever we can, we intervene if  _ any _ being could get hurt,” he said. “Even if they’re fully capable of healing themselves. Even if they’re demons, Senne.”

“All of you?” 

“I can’t speak for all of us, although I would certainly hope so,” said Jens, “but me and my Fledglings? Yeah. Always.”

In the background, Robbe was nodding; Sander leaned sideways into him, purposely this time, and Robbe did not move away. 

“Well,” said Senne, after a pause in which he was clearly observing every minuscule thing that passed between Sander and Robbe, “then I suppose thanks are in order. So, thank you, Fledgling angel, for taking care of him for me.” 

“I - it’s nothing,” said Robbe, muttering, but Sander turned to the side, tipped his white-flame head, studied Robbe like a morphologist squinting by dim lamplight at hieroglyphics on a cave wall. The heaviness of his gaze was more intimate than a forehead touch and Robbe was effectively nailed to the ground.

“Thanks,” said Sander quietly, and the genuine nature of his tone - so different from the cockiness that inundated his regular cadence - was confounding. It was strange and viscerous to clearly see beneath the guise of confidence that he wore, that complex masquerade costume, and Robbe swallowed to shove down how strongly it moved him.

“You’re welcome.”

Sander smiled, turned his head, sought Senne’s gaze. His Maker’s face was impassive. 

“Senne. He has a name. It’s Robbe.”

Senne’s face went unexpectedly soft. 

“Robbe, then,” he said. “You’ve been taught well.”

“He was like this before me,” said Jens. His voice was rough and Robbe knew he was pleased, emotional. “I didn’t have to do a thing. Ijzermans, I think we’ve seen enough today. Let’s go home.”

“Are you actually going to go home this time?” Sander was grinning still. “Or are you going to hang around like you did after you told us goodbye at Fight Night? I can Sense it, you know, when powerful things are close. I know you didn’t leave.”

“Maybe you can most of the time,” said Robbe, smirking, “but here, you’ll never be able to tell. All around you are powerful things. Any one of them could set you off.”

“Nah,” said Sander, shifting his gaze to and fro between Robbe’s lovely aqueous eyes, “I’d know if it was you. I know the way you feel by now.”

Robbe’s expression didn’t change, but once again his skin tone began to shimmer like a goldmine. 

“Don’t get too close to Atropos again, demon. This time I might not be here to save you.”

“That’s too bad,” said Sander. He was grinning. “But I think I’ll be okay. I know to stay away from her now.”

“I’m not so sure,” said Senne; he rolled his eyes, but his voice was fond. “I can’t let you out of my sight for two fucking seconds these days. Anyway, you’re not even going to get the opportunity to get close to her again right now. The Milking is almost over.”

He gestured behind him to the lake below; simultaneously Sander and Robbe strode forward to gather with their Elders at the cliffedge, curious for the conclusion of what had proven to be quite the spectacle. The three Fates had formed a loose stagnant circle in the air just above the Hydra’s snapping, slithering heads; once more they were howling a chant, but their distance from the top of the mountain was such that the hypnotic words blended into one indecipherable stream. Robbe scarcely had time to wonder what they were saying when Jens answered his question aloud.

“They’re telling it to go back,” he said. “To return to where it belongs.”

“Not a bad idea,” said Senne. “Driesen, let’s go before you get any more ideas. Stoffels...thanks for helping me look for him.”

He held out his hand to shake; Jens took it without hesitation.

“And you,” he said. “Now let’s try to make it another decade before we run into each other again, okay?”

But he was grinning as he said it. Senne laughed out loud, fangs flashing sharp before he closed his mouth again.

“I don’t have high hopes.  _ Tot later _ .”

“ _ Tot later, _ ” added Sander, scarlet eyes on Robbe, all of him so cocksure again. “Robbe.”

“ _ Tot later misschien, _ ” said Robbe, and a millisecond before the demon pair stepped into nothingness he added, “Sander.”

*

“I’d scold you,” said Senne casually some time later, “but it wouldn’t make a difference, would it?”

Restless, having returned to Senne’s place only to find it impossibly claustrophobic after all that live-wire open air, they had mutually decided to wander downtown to find dinner. Because demons weren’t required to eat for sustenance, many chose simply to do so as a social act, and partook in mealtimes far less often than the Earthly standard of three times a day. More often than not Sander found himself eating before he began his day as a force of habit; Senne assured him that once he stopped perceiving time as he had on Earth the tendency would fade, but Sander wasn’t so sure. He didn’t think even thousands of decades of existence would be enough to satiate his love for pancakes and waffles.

In the LE, the sky reflected ceaseless darkness; if time had been marked in the afterlife as it was on Earth, it would have been impossible to decipher the exact hour. As Sander and Senne roamed the streets of Eight’s city center, picking their steady way into the heart of town, there existed no cloud cover; planets and constellations abounded above their heads, and Sander found himself thinking of all the nights he’d spent driving beyond Antwerp’s city limits just to see the sky the way it was properly meant to be seen: without light pollution. Stargazing had been one of the only things that had saved his sanity on Earth, until one day it hadn’t. 

Now Sander measured his words before he replied, ruled against sarcasm in favor of sincerity.

“No, Senne. It wouldn’t. We weren’t lying, you know. I literally did collide with him trying to get away from the rockslide.”

“Yeah,” said Senne. “I believe you. You can’t lie to me anyway, Driesen, I always know the truth.”

Sander scoffed, mock-insulted. “When do I ever even try?”

“Never. Because you know you can’t get away with it.”

“Shit. So I guess I shouldn’t try to meet up with him in secret, then,” said Sander, deadpan.

They smirked at each other. On the road next to the sidewalk upon which they were walking a cloud-white sports car smashed past, traveling at an indecent speed; Senne watched its regressing progress for a moment before he answered. 

“It is a weird coincidence, though, that you saw him again. And so soon.”

“I know,” said Sander. In his head Robbe’s voice cooed his name, record scratch repeat. “It doesn’t make any sense. I’d never even  _ seen _ an angel and then…”

“Two days in a row,” agreed Senne, “you happen to come across the same one.”

Once more, a contented silence blanketed the air around them; Sander was thinking. At last he said, cautious,

“Coincidence doesn’t exist, Senne. Especially in the afterlife.”

When Senne replied his voice was as even as an ironing board. “I know.”

“He told me he was from Antwerp. When he was human.”

This didn’t seem to surprise Senne in the slightest. “It makes sense that Jens chose him as a Fledgling, then. Angels and demons almost always pick apprentices from the cities they lived in on Earth.”

“Like you did with me,” said Sander, nodding.

“Exactly.” Senne was clearly struggling with an internal matter of significant magnitude; Sander knew him as well as he knew his own name, understood the nature of every silence and pause and shift in tone. “Driesen, what I was telling you at Fight Night. About the relationship between angels and demons.”

“Yeah.” Sander’s heart was throbbing like a war drum against his ribcage, but he tried not to express how overeager he was. Senne sighed.

“So, I wasn’t exactly honest with you. Not all angels treat us like something they found on the bottom of their shoe. There are exceptions.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Sander, after a beat. He was chewing on his lip ring so vigorously he could taste undertones of copper. “I kind of figured after watching you and the High Angel together today.”

“His name is Jens,” said Senne, smiling. “If you’re gonna make me call your baby angel  _ Robbe,  _ or whatever.”

“Am I  _ allowed  _ \- ”

“If it were any other High Angel, no, at least not to their face,” said Senne. “But like I said. There are exceptions.”

“You put on a good show at Fight Night,” said Sander, mildly stunned. “I believed the whole  _ fuck-you _ vibe you guys were giving off.”

“It wasn’t a show,” said Senne, “not really. Our relationship is complicated. We’re not friends anymore, because we really can’t be. But he and I don’t hate each other, and we’ll work together if it’s necessary, every time. I’d say that’s the case with most angels and demons, actually.”

“I know you guys don’t hate each other. But you seemed surprised that Robbe’s instinct was to protect me,” said Sander. “You didn’t know that angels will stop us from getting hurt if they need to?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Senne. His eyes were trench-deep. 

“Do we do the same for them?”

“Yes. Or at least, I would, and I hope you’d do the same.”

“I would,” said Sander on a whisper. It surprised him that he was speaking the truth. “What else do you know?”

“I know that in the past, when things have gotten  _ really _ desperate, angels and demons have worked together to intervene in human problems. But, Sander, this stuff isn’t common knowledge. Only those of us who need to know, do. If it got around, it would hurt  _ both  _ of our images. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“You’re saying don’t tell anyone,” said Sander. “Got it.”

“Exactly,” said Senne, grinning.

“So have  _ you _ worked with angels to help humanity, then?”

“Yeah. A few times,” said Senne offhand, like this was not absolutely groundbreaking information. “maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime. For now it’s enough that you understand that the whole  _ nothing’s like it’s supposed to be here  _ thing applies to this, too.”

“ _ De Smet, _ ” yelped Sander, dumbfounded, “come on, that’s not fair. You can’t leave me hanging like that.”

“Driesen,” said Senne calmly, “be happy I told you what I just did. This should open your eyes, in a  _ big _ fucking way.”

There was a weighted, seconds-long pause. 

“So if you’re saying that nothing’s like it’s supposed to be in the afterlife,” said Sander slowly, “are you by default saying that sometimes there are exceptions to the  _ demons are not meant to mix with angels  _ line you fed me, too?”

“What? I’m not saying anything,” said Senne, with his eyes straight ahead. “Don’t put words in my mouth, kid.”

But he was smiling, and Sander felt reckless hope bubbling in his chest. 

“What changed? I mean, what made you change your mind between Fight Night and now to make you want to tell me the truth? You went from  _ get the fuck away from him  _ to  _ sometimes angels and demons work together when we need to _ in like, two seconds.”

Senne barked out an unsuspecting laugh. “You really have a way with words, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.” 

“I’m telling you because I saw how that angel - Robbe, or whatever the fuck his name is - I saw how he was with you. He doesn’t hate you, Sander, and I don’t think he would even if he was supposed to. The Inflexible One is no joke, and neither is Hydra venom. By Warping you away when he did, he saved you a lot of potential pain. Whether he admits it or not - and I can’t fucking believe  _ I’m  _ admitting this, because I didn’t think any of this was possible before today - I think he cares what happens to you.”

Sander’s mouth was dry. “You think or you know?”

“I  _ think _ ,” said Senne, amused. “but in a strong enough way that I’d put money on it.”

“Senne de Smet, I’m appalled at you.  _ He. Is. Not. For. Me _ ,” said Sander, emphasizing his words exactly as Senne had the previous evening in Exitium. “Remember?”

“My opinion on that hasn’t changed,” said Senne. “I still believe that all roads inevitably lead to pain here. But it’s kind of nice to know that your little crush is reciprocated, don’t you think?” 

*

“So apparently,” said Jens loudly, the second their feet met ground back in the UA, “your demon  _ won’t _ burst into flames the second he touches you, huh?”

Robbe blinked, acclimating; Jens had chosen to Warp directly home and they’d landed in the perfect centre of his backyard garden, encircled by flowers and fountains and merrily chirruping birds. Everything was sun and luminosity and it was a disorienting contrast to the murk-black gloom of Lake Lerna, but it was not distracting enough to pull Robbe’s thoughts from what Jens had just said. He was entirely finished with turning the color of a canary doused in gold dust. 

“Fuck  _ off _ , Jens. I didn’t plan any of that. You freaked out and told me to get away from there and I just grabbed him. I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

“I know, Robbe,” said Jens seriously, taking his Fledgling gently by the chin so he would look him in the eye; Robbe whined in protest, tried to pull away. “Hey. I know. Look at me. I’m proud of you.”

This was not in the slightest what Robbe had expected and it drained the resistance from him almost instantaneously. “You - are?”

“Fuck, don’t sound so surprised,” said Jens, chuckling. “Yes. I am. You did the right thing today, even after everything you’ve been told about demons. It’s what any other angel would have done in your place.”

Robbe puffed out a relieved breath; he knew Jens must be privy to the fact that his motives were not entirely virtuous, but if Jens wasn’t going to bring that up, neither was he. “I - yeah, of course. You just sounded like you were having a fucking coronary and I didn’t want him - or, you know,  _ any _ being - anywhere near whatever was causing you to lose it like that.”

“You didn’t tell Sander I can read minds, though,” said Jens, studying Robbe’s face. His chocolate-bar eyes were sincerely puzzled. “Why not?”

Robbe gave him a look. “Jens, come on, you know exactly why not.”

“So he doesn’t know to shut off his thoughts around me, and I can tell you what he’s honestly thinking?” Jens arched one eyebrow so sharply it made a perfect parenthesis against the smoothness of his forehead. “Are you sure you want to know? You’re an angel of chastity, kiddo, we have to keep your thoughts pure here.”

Robbe rolled his eyes so hard the motion was almost painful. “I think I already do, Jens, it’s not like he was trying to hide it. Besides, you know better than anyone that being an angel of chastity does not equal being a  _ virgin _ .”

“True.” Jens shook his head, let it fall back so his face was to the sun. “And I  _ also _ know what that extreme eye-bleed of his means.”

Robbe felt his stomach clench, warm. “I like how yesterday you were calling all demons  _ it _ and now you’re about to let me see into the inner workings of Sander’s brain.”

“Nope. Not all. Remember what I said about extenuating circumstances.” When Jens tipped his head down again to look Robbe in the eye his grin was knowing, sharklike. “So do you want to know or am I just going to sit on this information for the rest of my existence?”

Exasperated, voracious with curiosity, Robbe huffed like he’d never been more inconvenienced in his life. “No, Jens. I want you to keep it from me forever.”

“Smartass.” 

“I wouldn’t be if you’d quit giving me shit about doing my angelic duty.”

“Don’t give me that line, Ijzermans, you didn’t even  _ know  _ it was your angelic duty until I told you. You saved him from Atropos because you wanted to, not because you were supposed to.”

“Fine,” said Robbe, “I did want to. He’s interesting. But I still would have saved him if he wasn’t. I just would have had, you know, different motives.”

“Uh huh,” said Jens, triumphant. “Bingo. Yeah, so his eyes bleed when he’s excited. You  _ excite  _ him, Robbe.”

Robbe made an involuntary noise that sounded very much like a choking walrus.

“I  _ what _ ?”

“Told you at Fight Night, I saw the way he was looking at you,” said Jens. Without removing his gaze from Robbe’s own he outstretched one arm; a tiny emerald-colored bird landed almost instantly upon his wrist, squawking cheerfully. “Your little demon friend has a crush. A little more than a crush, actually.”

It was overwhelming how much Robbe wanted to explode out of his own skin and sink into the ground at the same time. “Fat fucking chance.”

“Robbe, please,” said Jens patiently, “Don’t insult me by pretending I can’t see exactly what you’re thinking right now. You like him, too.”

“Who are you, Milan?” Robbe’s entire body was burning. “He’s insolent and arrogant and thinks he can do whatever he wants. He’s the last being in existence that I would have a crush on. I do not  _ like him _ , and even if I did it wouldn’t fucking matter anyway because he’s a fucking demon.”

“Sure, okay,” said Jens, smirking, melted honey of his eyes all alight. “All I heard there was denial, Ijzermans.”

“ _ Jens _ .”

“What?” Jens reached out, placed the jewel-feathered bird on Robbe’s shoulder before he stroked one finger down his Fledgling’s glimmering nose and smiled. “Stop losing it on me here, it’s okay. Sander’s specialty is Lust, yeah?”

Robbe sighed. “Yeah.”

“Funny. Opposites attract.”

Robbe had to laugh, but it was caustic. “Weirdly enough, you’re not the first being that’s said so to me today.”

“Bet I know who else did,” said Jens. “Listen, don’t worry about it. Forget him. You did a good deed, you were the temporary victim of a Lust demon’s interest. Let me tell you from personal experience, they find it fun to pick on the ones they’re not allowed to have, and no one is immune when they turn on the charm. Cheer up, we have another off period coming up, so we can do whatever you want, sound good?”

“Whatever I want?” Robbe leveled Jens with a gaze. “You sure about that?”

Jens corrected himself. “Fine. Whatever you want  _ within reason _ .”

“Don’t be such a parent, hell,” said Robbe, and it took every ounce of control he owned not to think of that sly devious voice saying  _ if you ever want to go, give me a call.  _ “I want to go hang out with Milan.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Robbe and Milan go exploring in uncharted territory, and Senne accompanies Sander on a necessary mission.

“She can’t stay with you today? Why?”

Just before Robbe and Jens had been about to leave to meet up with Milan, Zoë and Jana, unaware that it was still their off period, had Warped onto the front lawn with a request: that Jana be allowed to observe Jens in Norway for the day. Gabriel had been called away to a highly urgent - and highly confidential - situation in China, and Jana, as a very fresh Fledgling, would not be permitted to join him.

“I have to be in the Congo for a twelve-hour shift. Ebola outbreak. Medical gore is  _ not _ her thing.” Zoë bit her lip. “I’m sorry, Jens, I didn’t know who else to ask.”

“You guys, come on, I’m right here,” said Jana crossly, and Zoë and Jens both turned to her, apologetic.

“Sorry, my love,” said Zoë. “I know. Jens, do you mind? You can swap your time off for another day if you want, right?”

“Oh yeah, Michael doesn’t care when I’m on shift as long as I get my work done, so that won’t be an issue,” said Jens. He sighed, looked over at Robbe. “Are you okay with that? Do you want to come with us so we can keep our off days consistent or go hang out with Milan on your own?”

“You were going to see Mil without me?” Zoë stuck out her tongue, shoulders slumping, disappointed. “Ugh, I need another off period. Tell him hi from me if you go, will you?”

“I will,” said Robbe, grinning, his mind spiraling with the sudden array of delicious possibilities, how Milan might bring out the underlying tricky in him. “It’ll be fine, Jens. We’ll just go to the pool or something. No worries.”

“Alright,” said Jens. “And you know where to Warp to meet him? Right in front of that weird four-story curio shop in downtown GP?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” said Robbe. “Jana, give him hell today. Have fun.”

“Promise,” said Jana, grinning. “This will honestly be way better than watching Gabriel. He’s boring as hell.”

“He’s just ancient,” said Zoë, laughing. “Don’t be blasphemous, Jana, he’s very nice for taking you on.”

“I know, I know, sorry.” Jana twisted her mouth. “Do you have to go to the Congo? Isn’t it really dangerous?”

“Not for angels,” said Zoë gently, and she drew her little Fledgling in for an embrace, kissed her on the tip of the nose. Although Jana was substantially taller than Zoë, her energy was small and sweet and light; she’d have made a better angel of chastity than Robbe, but her virtue was temperance and it was clear that it suited her. “I want a full report when you get back, okay?”

Jana beamed. “Okay.”

“I want one from you, too, Zoë, actually,” said Jens with some interest, smiling at their sweet exchange. “Ebola?  _ Sick _ .”

“Literally,” said Zoë, sighing. “Medical is  _ harrowing _ . We’ll meet up tonight for food or something and I’ll tell you all about it. Robbe, trust me, let Milan do his thing and do something other than go to the pool. He’ll impress you.”

Robbe raised his hands as though further divergence from the original plan wasn’t all he’d been thinking about since it had already been so drastically altered. “If you insist. I kind of wanted to just lay around. The past few days have been a  _ lot _ .”

“Oh yeah?” Zoë’s eyes narrowed, so slightly Robbe would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking at her straight on. “You’ll have to tell me about that at dinner, too. I have to go.  _ Tot later. _ ”

And with a little wave she stepped back from them and Warped. The spot where she’d been standing crackled with the velocity of her exit; Jana’s lovely auburn-laced hair sputtered suddenly around her face, windswept. Robbe looked at Jens.

“So you’ll let me know when you’re headed back?”

“Yes.” Jens nicked Robbe under the chin, smiled. “If you get bored with Milan come join us?”

“I will,” said Robbe, and a split-second pang scraped through his chest; he genuinely missed Jens when they were apart, and he knew it was the same for his Maker. No matter how much time Makers and Fledglings had together, even after Fledglings passed all of the requirements needed for their transcendence into higher-tier angels, the bond that was forged upon Turning was always there, always strong. Jens had taken on four Fledglings prior to Robbe and none of them were ever overly far from his orbit; Jens himself went to visit his own Maker regularly. “Jana, don’t forget what I said.”

“Give him hell,” said Jana, amused. “Got it.”

Jens kissed Robbe on the forehead, touched the tip of his nose to Robbe’s briefly before he pulled back. “Behave. Don’t get any ideas. You know what I’m talking about.”

Robbe grinned, mock-offended. “You know me better than that, Stoffels, come on.”

“You’re right, I do know you. Which is exactly why I said what I said.” In the mild pleasant sunlight Jens’s eyes were iridescent, diamondlike. 

Jana, her own eyes narrowed, was looking between them with mounting fascination. “I hope we talk about  _ this _ at dinner, too.”

“It’s nothing interesting,” said Robbe, wrinkling his nose. “Jens just likes to give me shit for existing sometimes. Go have fun with the mermaids.”

Jana’s whole demeanor shifted; she was sufficiently derailed from her suspicion, which was exactly what Robbe had wanted. “Wait, we’re going to see  _ mermaids _ ?”

“Fuck yeah we’re going to see mermaids,” said Jens, wiggling his eyebrows, so severe if he would ever be serious enough to frown properly. “ _ Norwegian  _ mermaids. So they have, like, Ariel palaces, but they’re made of icebergs. You ready?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” said Jana, and with a little wave to Robbe, Jens took her elbow and whirled her away. Grinning, Robbe stood in place for a moment; then, with an amused shake of his head, he closed his eyes and followed suit, although his destination was decidedly quite different from an ice palace off the coast of Scandinavia.

The atmosphere in Greater Purgatory was exceedingly different today than it had been on Drinking Night; the cloud cover, albeit still the color of a dovefeather, was significantly more diaphanous and as a result seemed cheerier than Robbe had become accustomed to. When he and Jens hung out in the GP it was generally at the end of a work shift, at which time many other Holies had also already been relieved of their posts; most were dispatched during Earth days to keep an eye on things throughout the most efficacious human hours, although a substantial number of them preferred to keep watch overnight. When Robbe had inquired as to why, Jens had explained that activity on Earth tended to decrease from the hours of eleven pm to six am, but “the freaks come out at night,” he’d said, laughing, “and some angels would rather deal with the crazies than the normals.” This explanation made perfect sense; life as Robbe had known it on Earth had often altered drastically once the moon had risen, as most humans felt - however falsely - that illicit activities of all levels were easier to conceal when darkness was ruling the land. 

Now, being in Greater Purgatory at the commencement of day shift gave Robbe the opportunity to observe an entirely contrary crowd than he’d yet seen; through traffic from other dimensions was much steadier during off periods for night-shifters, as many beings were either arriving back from a day at work or on their way to assume their positions. Demons were never allowed to step foot in the GP unless their presence was required for a meeting or a work assignment - and Robbe understood each of these occurrences to be incredibly rare - but other members of the dark side, such as harpies and banshees and vampires, often had to pass through the city in order to reach their final destination, and they were currently present in droves. In addition to this new, fascinating crowd of Unholies, the GP’s visiting population of scarcely-seen Neutrals and Holies had increased tenfold, and the resulting spectacle was _jawdropping_. Robbe was gazing with great raw interest at a small cluster of centaurs, the tallest of whom was reading aloud from a scroll of worn, green-glowing parchment, when he felt the air beside him stir; he looked sideways and found Milan propped at a rakish angle against the doorframe of the curio shop, observing Robbe through a pair of murder-red sunglasses.

“Hello, little Fledgling.”

Mildly startled, but not altogether surprised, Robbe grinned at him in genuine delight. 

“Hi, Milan.”

“Don’t you look enchanting,” said Milan, glinting at the eyes, the corners of his mouth quirked up, parenthetical. Robbe glanced down at himself; he was wearing his typical off-day attire of dark jeans, skater shoes, and a faded gray logo t-shirt, all of which he’d managed to replicate flawlessly from his human years. Milan, who evidently always dressed as though he was moments from stepping onto a runway in the middle of Paris Fashion Week, was the enchanting one. Today he was the darkest version of himself Robbe had seen yet, head to toe black except for that slash of color around his eyes; his aesthetic merged perfectly with the image Robbe held in his head of the mysterious, forbidden LE. He said,

“I - not really - ”

“Oh, hush,” said Milan, smirking, “to your little demon boy you  _ always _ look delicious. You  _ do _ want to see him today, don’t you? Since your Maker isn’t here to stop you from breaking the rules? I love him, but God, he can be so  _ boring _ .”

In spite of himself Robbe was chuckling. “I’m starting to really hate how much you know about me.”

Milan shrugged, flippant, continuously amused. “I was just trying to save you the trouble of having to  _ ask _ , Robbe. But please, don’t let me influence you if you don’t want to make the trip to the LE. We can do whatever you like.”

“You already know what I want to do,” said Robbe patiently. “Besides, Zoë told me to let you impress me. She says hi, by the way.”

“Ugh,  _ Zoë _ ,” groaned Milan, “she always has to work on the  _ worst _ days. I haven’t taken her to the LE in  _ ages _ .”

Robbe’s heartbeat stuttered. “Zoë goes with you to the LE?”

“Well, yeah,” said Milan, arching his brows once, all enigma. “I told you there are plenty of unauthorized trips down there, didn’t I, baby angel? Zoë is my - oh, what do the humans call it -  _ main bitch _ . We go together all the time.”

Robbe was stunned. “Does Jens know?”

Milan licked a stripe over his top lip, unblinking, noncommittal. “You’d have to ask him about that.”

“Does  _ Jana _ know?”

“Doubtful,” said Milan. “Zoë hasn’t joined me much down there since she brought Jana on. That’s a big subject to breach with a Fledgling so young, anyway, she’ll probably wait a few years to discuss it with her.”

“Well, Jens hasn’t even fucking told  _ me _ about it yet, and I’m in my fifth year of Angeldom, so.” Robbe could not beat back the shard of irritation that cracked in his voice. “What does she do in the LE? Watch you play cards with wendigos?”

“Sometimes,” said Milan delicately, “sometimes she plays, too. Yet other times she wanders off on her own for a bit. But that’s her business, Fledgling, not ours.”

He stepped back from the doorway to let a man with aubergine hair and a drawn face pass through; the man was wearing a work uniform and Robbe pegged him as a mid-tier human, probably halfway through serving his penance. Existence in the GP as a stuck mortal was rumored to be far better than existence in the LP as a stuck mortal, and those who ended up on the lighter side of things had a far greater chance of either reincarnating as a favorable being or being elevated to Fledgling angel status once they’d lived out all of their mortal lives. Before Robbe had met Sander, he’d automatically assumed this fate to be preferable; now, however, he’d decided to gather a bit more information on his own before making that final assessment.

Milan was watching the fascination on Robbe’s face with patient amusement.

“You don’t spend much time here during day shift, do you?”

Robbe snorted. “What gave it away?”

“You’re gawking,” said Milan. “It’s adorable. But you’re going to have to keep it to a minimum in Lower Earth, honey, because even my best spells can’t hide you if your body language is screaming  _ newbie _ .”

“I’ll do my best,” said Robbe. “But don’t turn me into a vampire, because it didn’t work on Sander.”

“Sander is unusual,” said Milan frankly. “He sees things that most others of his kind can’t, because of his Ability. Anyway, we’re going in hopes of catching a glimpse of him, aren’t we? It’s other demons we’ll have to worry about hiding that angelic glow from.”

Robbe cringed at himself, his transparency; he thought of Sander saying  _ I know the way you feel by now  _ and flushed. “Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know if I actually want him to know that I’m...there.”

“Ahhhh.” Milan’s eyes sparked. “This is a  _ recon _ mission. I see.”

“I guess,” said Robbe, looking away; the group of centaurs had disappeared, but it seemed there would be no shortage of curious things to observe today: where the centaurs had previously stood there was now an arrestingly beautiful wood sprite, a crown of leaves looping the top of her artfully dreadlocked head. She was accompanied by a small following of forest creatures, all of whom were chattering away as she smiled fondly down at them, and Robbe was reminded forcefully of Jens’s allusion to  _ Hercules _ . Sometimes the Afterlife could truly feel like a fantastical world invented by a children’s cartoonist. 

“Well. It’s Lower Earth. Even if we go in with no plan except to play a card game or two, we’ll find something else to get ourselves into regardless of whether we’re looking for it or not.” Milan chucked Robbe under the chin. “And don’t worry, kiddo, you’re not going to be recognized if you don’t want to be. I’m much better at concealment spells than Daddy Jens.  _ Don’t _ tell him I said that.”

Robbe raised his hands. “I’d never, but he might read your mind. Do your worst.”

“Fledgling, I do  _ not _ think you know what you’re asking,” said Milan, grinning enigmatically. “But before I can do much in that department, we need to do a little shopping.”

And so saying, he jerked his head for Robbe to follow and disappeared into the store. 

Eagerly Robbe trailed him; though he’d eyed it many times from the rooftop of his usual nightclub haunt, he had never had the opportunity to visit this particular curio shop. Inside it was shockingly loud both in noise and color; beings of every nature packed the place from window to wall, and Robbe was having an impossible time choosing one thing to which to devote his attention. Everywhere he looked he saw something of interest: hags, gremlins, cherubs, minor deities; behind the counter a bored-looking teenage mortal was holding his own as he haggled with Medea over the price of a dragon scale. Hummingbirds, faeries, and monarch butterflies flitted overhead, perching occasionally on the artful, flowery lights strung across the ceiling; it was like looking directly into an aviary, albeit one from another world. Abstractly Robbe wondered when he would become accustomed to the enthralling, unbelievable majesty that was the Afterlife; decided it would likely be  _ never _ .

“Even if I didn’t like you so much,” said Milan, chuckling, “it would have been worth it to bring you along just to watch your face, your expressions are  _ priceless _ . I’d have loved to have seen you at Fight Night.”

“I thought you did see me at Fight Night,” said Robbe, forcing his gaze away from the bustle of activity to look Milan in the eye, “since you know so much about me and Sander.”

“Sure, because I started paying attention as soon as I noticed you two interacting. The scent of starcrossed lovers attracts me from a lightyear away,” said Milan, winking. “Come on. What we need isn’t here.”

He grabbed Robbe’s wrist; the next thing Robbe knew, they were on another floor of the shop entirely. This one was much more subdued than the first, though no less interesting; it was all muted noise and neutral color, the reverent hush of a twilit forest clearing in the air. In keeping with this theme lush green foliage sprouted thickly from the walls; there were no windows, yet the room appeared to be filled with evening sunshine. Shelves full of trinkets and spell ingredients, each more nonsensical to Robbe than the last, rose floor-to-ceiling before them; he was baffled by the haphazard layout, but Milan, clearly a repeat customer, knew just where to go. He led Robbe confidently to the back corner of the room, reached up to rummage just above their heads in a bin full of strange scaly things. Robbe bent slightly to examine the line of stone-hewn chalices on the rack in front of him.

“What exactly  _ do _ we need here?”

“Wormwood,” said Milan, “and basilisk venom. If we’re going to make you dark, we have to go  _ full _ dark.”

“We do?”

“Obviously. There’s no other way to sneak an angel into the LE without attracting a ton of notice, honey, you’re much too bright for Satan’s lair.”

Robbe snorted. “And you’re not?”

“Have you even looked at me today?” Milan’s voice was light, brimming with gold. “I mean, it really wouldn’t matter how I presented myself, because they know me down there, but I try to stay consistent with their whole  _ gloom and doom _ thing out of respect. Demons can get tetchy when they see things that shine too brilliantly.”

He produced a vial of dubious liquid from the bin within which he had been rummaging, held it to his eye in order to examine it; Robbe stared warily.

“What are you going to do with that?”

Milan laughed. “Nothing you can’t handle. You’ll still be you, just...edgier.”

He turned sideways so he could size Robbe up, tilted his head with his mouth quirked up and his strange silvery eyes slitted. Robbe kept his gaze steady, allowed himself to be scrutinized.

“You need an earring.”

Robbe bridged an eyebrow. “Do I.”

“Yes,” said Milan, decisive. “Hold still.”

Before Robbe could protest the sylph-elf had taken his chin in one hand, traced a slow circle with his fingertip around Robbe’s left earlobe; he felt warmth blooming through his skin, directly followed by a singular jab of muted pain, then Milan drew back and studied his handiwork with a satisfied nod of his head. By force of habit Robbe reached up to touch the new addition to his body and Milan slapped his wrist away; Robbe scowled but kept his hands down obediently. 

“How do I look?”

“Exactly the same,” said Milan, mouth twitching, “except now you have a cool earring. If you hate it you can take it out when we’re done in Lower Earth, but I don’t think you will. I’ll let you see it when I’m finished with you.”

So, trying valiantly not to reach up and fiddle with the stinging new addition to his countenance, Robbe followed Milan from shelf to shelf, occasionally trailing behind to dig through their contents himself. The things he found made his chest soar anew with wonder: troll teeth the approximate size and scale of a great white shark’s incisors, vicious curving gryphon talons, faerie eggs that had taken on the shimmering galactic color of the Milky Way. There seemed to be no discernible rhyme or reason to the way the room was arranged and Robbe understood how simple it would be to lose himself for infinite hours within the confines of this one floor alone; he found himself mildly disappointed when Milan’s scavenger hunt was complete.

Fifteen minutes later, having successfully shouted down the store clerk for a marginally cheaper price on basilisk venom, Milan and Robbe were marching down the street towards the entrance to the LP, supplies in hand. As they walked Milan scouted the surrounding side alleys for privacy; at last, when they were perhaps three or four blocks from their destination, Milan found an alcove sufficient for their needs and pulled Robbe by the hand into its shadows, where he began digging in the pockets of his overcoat.

Robbe said with great skepticism, watching him,

“I don’t have to drink anything, do I?” 

“No,” said Milan, pulling out a minuscule jar of what appeared to be black glitter, “not this time, anyway.”

“What’s that?”

“Petrified skinwalker blood,” said Milan as he unscrewed the lid, poured a droplet of the freshly-procured basilisk venom inside. The jar’s contents glowed hunter green for a moment before they merged into a singular floating, smoking entity; the effect was mildly frightening. “Hold this.”

He shoved the lidded container of basilisk venom into Robbe’s hands, reached into the little bag he’d gotten from the curio shop, pulled out the vial of wormwood. Pinched a leaf off, crumbled it between his fingers, and tapped it gently into his strange concoction, where it disappeared into the glinting black smoke. Milan capped the jar and swirled its contents gently counterclockwise before he opened it once again and looked at Robbe.

“Ready?”

“Uh,” said Robbe, entirely unsure of the answer to such a question. “Yes?”

“Convinced me,” said Milan, winking. Then he upended the jar full of poisonous night over Robbe’s head.

Abruptly the air around him waxed Arctic and tingling; it was as though he’d stepped into a walk-in freezer back on Earth. As the glittery dust flitted and whorled down upon him Robbe stayed as still as his nerves would allow, heartbeat panicking against his ribbones, fully anticipating a shock or great agony to strike at any moment. It was pleasantly anticlimactic when the dust cleared without either of those things occurring. 

With his middle finger Milan drew a flawless line from Robbe’s forehead to his chin, tapped him once on each temple.

“ _ Invaderet abscondis _ ,” he said, and instantaneously the surrounding temperature standardized. “Beautiful, Robbe. Would you like to see yourself?”

“Yes,” said Robbe, shameless in his curiosity, so Milan pulled a pocket mirror from his coat and flipped it open.

In describing the temporary transformation as  _ you’ll still be you, just edgier _ , Milan had been dead accurate. Robbe’s hair had gone deep dark and his sorrel eyes a contrasting, fluctuating shade of opal, the gilt overtone of his skin muted to phantom-matte pale to veil the tattoos that striped down the backs of his arms, but his general features remained more or less the same. Through the lobe of his left ear hooked an impossible platinum hoop and as Robbe examined it he couldn’t stop himself grinning: he’d always wanted a piercing as a human and had never gotten around to getting one before he’d been Turned.

“I told you,” said Milan, watching him with serene satisfaction. “It’s a good look, right?” 

“Not bad,” said Robbe, and it was his turn to wink. “I’m impressed. So. What’s my story, if anyone asks?”

“For all intents and purposes, you’re a skinwalker,” said Milan, “so you’ll be highly accepted by my group of wendigo pals. You’re covered in the blood of one right now, which means that any being with an overly strong sense of smell will only pick up that particular scent, and you’re protected by the basilisk venom and the wormwood. That little concealment spell I spoke over you at the end sealed the deal. If Sander’s anywhere to be found, he’ll probably recognize you, but I think he’ll know better than to say anything. You’re safe.”

“Milan,” said Robbe with sincerity, “you’re a genius.”

“I know,” said Milan, satisfied. “Now let’s go pop your Lower Earth cherry.”

*

At the same time Robbe was transforming into a much darker version of himself, Sander, under the tutelage of Noor, was undergoing the procedural antithesis. For the fourth time since he’d been Turned, he was going light. 

He was fully aware that as a fresh Fledgling he should stop visiting Antwerp so frequently, but the knowledge that someone might recognize him wasn’t enough to stop him; almost everyone he’d been associated with during his last several human years likely didn’t realize that he’d died, and those who  _ did _ know probably wouldn’t be able to place his face in the light. Sometimes, in a detached sort of way, he found himself wondering what had become of his former clientele, but Senne, ever his protector, would not let him dwell upon the thought. 

“Are you at least taking Senne with you?” 

Perched on the edge of Sander’s bathroom sink, Noor was studying him as he cautiously squeezed droplets of potion into each of his eyes. The first time he’d used her transformative draught to stop himself bleeding tears, turn the hue of his irises a subtle icechip blue, he’d been apprehensive, but the effect had proved to be almost soothing and now he was able to administer the correct dosage without accidentally blinking it all away. 

“Yes,” said Sander, closing his eyes tightly to ensure the elixir would do its job. “You know he goes with me every time. It’s always fine.”

“Does your Archdemon know? Asmodeus?”

“Yeah, she does,” said Sander, still with his eyes shut. “Senne has to get her permission if he wants to take his Fledglings back to their hometowns before their restrictions end, and it always has to be for a legitimate reason.”

Noor’s eyebrows curved upward; she was wholly, obviously unconvinced. “And visiting your fuckup dad fits in the category of  _ legitimate reasons _ ?”

“Believe it or not,” said Sander, tongueing at his lip ring as he rocked to and fro on his heels and waited. “But if she’s cool with it, I’m not questioning. I thought I’d end up having to do it in secret and who the fuck knows what would have happened then.”

“Hold still.” Noor reached up, spread her fingertips just in front of Sander’s eyes, muttered something unintelligible under her breath. When she was finished speaking, Sander, familiar with their routine by now, slowly cracked his eyelids; in the mirror before them he could see that the spellwork had been effective. His cheeks were cleared of bloodspatter, irises an arresting shade of light blue circled by white, and his skin had bronzed to the same amber-olive it had been when he’d been alive. The shocking blonde cloud of his hair had reduced to a low sort of honey brown; without the ring of metal still looping through his lower lip he’d have looked positively chaste.

“Thanks, Noor.”

“Yeah,” said Noor, but she hesitated, and Sander glanced over at her.

“What?”

“It’s just - ” Noor brought one hand to her artfully lipsticked mouth, attacked her thumbnail with her teeth. “Like, why do you give a fuck about your dad anyway? He’s the whole reason your life went to shit.”

“I know,” said Sander with heaviness in his tone. “But he’s also the reason I’m here now, and being here is the best thing that could have happened to me. I’ve got everything I ever had on Earth when my mum was alive, and more. But my dad - now that I’m, you know, not alive, he doesn’t have anyone left.”

“But it’s not like you even  _ see  _ him, so what good does it do for you to go back? He doesn’t know you’re there, and you don’t get to talk to him. Shouldn’t you just try to - I don’t know - move on from all that?”

“I am  _ moving on from all that _ ,” said Sander, smiling. “Seriously, it helps me to check up on him. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t go. He might not see me, but I try to let him know I’m still around in whatever way I can be, and it makes me feel good to do it. Anyway, he seems to be doing a little better lately. He has a job and everything. So I think he’s getting the message.”  Noor perused his face, sighed. Her witching-hour eyes were soft. 

“Sometimes I don’t think you were meant to be a demon at all.”

“Nah, I definitely was,” said Sander, waggling his eyebrows as he smirked. “Trust me. They don’t welcome the kind of knowledge I have about the sins of the flesh in the Upper Atmosphere.”

“I know someone who would welcome that knowledge from you,” said Noor slyly, and Sander groaned aloud.

“Noor, fuck off, you know I’m not into Britt like that.”

“I know,” said Noor, laughing, “but I’m always gonna give you shit about it. The day she gets over you will be a beautiful one for both of us.”

Sander leveled her with a gaze, curious. “Why? She’s never even made a move on me. I wouldn’t even know she liked me if you hadn’t told me.”

“Yeah, cause you’re fucking oblivious,” said Noor without malice. “But I’m personally sick of hearing her talk about you.”

“Sick of hearing who talk about him?”

Senne came loping in from the other room, dressed as inconspicuously as Sander had ever seen him in a plain gray t-shirt and dark jeans. He strode over to the mirror, shoved Sander grinning off to one side so he could lean in and inspect the modified straight line of his teeth, and when Sander pushed him playfully back they swapped a loaded glance.

“Dick.”

“Asshole. Your hair looks good.” 

“And here,” said Noor, with gentle exasperation, “is exactly the reason why Britt will never be brave enough to try it with you. She’s terrified that Senne would kill her.”

“Oh, we’re talking about Britt?” Frowning, distracted, Senne pushed at his left incisor, which despite his most valiant efforts was still slightly sharper than its counterpart. “God damn it. Noor, can you fix this? It never goes totally dull for me.”

“You should have let me do it to begin with, dumbass,” said Noor with affection, squeezing in beside him. “Let me see.”

“I wouldn’t kill her if she made a move,” said Senne nonchalantly, as Noor peered at his uneven wolf teeth. “But I’d be annoyed. I like her, but a harpy is no match for a demon.”

Sander laughed out loud. “And  _ you _ were getting mad at  _ angels _ for looking down on  _ us _ ? De Smet, you filthy hypocrite.”

Automatically Senne turned his head to meet Sander’s gaze in the mirror. His eyes were impervious, dark. “I don’t look down on her, Driesen, I’m just saying you’d be unfulfilled with her. Stating a fact isn’t an insult.”

“He’s not wrong,” said Noor, grabbing Senne’s face so she could keep him still. “And since I’m her best friend, I’m the supreme authority on her love life. You’re not her type, and eventually she’ll see it. Even if she’s blinded by her lust for you right now.”

“Who isn’t blinded by their lust for him,” said Senne flatly, and Sander choked, his thoughts sneaking back always, always,  _ always _ to Robbe and that lustrous glimmering glow.

“Okay, Jesus, Senne.” Noor was smirking. “Down, boy.”

“Yeah, for real, come on. I’m not even bleeding right now,” said Sander, face burning even as he grinned, and Senne chuckled deeply in his throat. 

“You’re a demon of lust,” he said, categorically unapologetic. “If you didn’t have the ability to turn heads everywhere you went, there would be something seriously wrong with your specialty placement.”

“Well. Now that we know he has that effect on  _ you _ ,” said Noor, and Senne raised his eyebrows but remained silent. “Can you please shut up so I can fix your mouth?”

*

The Warp back to Earth was always strange - far different than magical travel within the realm of the Afterlife - but Sander found that when his final destination was Antwerp, the cellular effect was positively discomfiting. It was as though his new programming was designed to ensure that he knew he wasn’t supposed to be there; thus, each time he’d visited his hometown as a demon, he’d had to take several moments upon arrival to collect himself, calm his raging blood, let his heartrate stabilize. Prior to his initial trip, Senne had warned him that an odd feeling of displacement might occur, but Sander had not been wholly prepared for the sensation and the instant his feet had met ground he’d nearly dissolved into a panic attack on the spot. Senne had had to pull him to one side of the street, sit him down on a bench, take his shoulders in both hands and breathe with him until he’d settled.

This time, however, he was more prepared for the discomfort than he’d ever been, and the effect was marginal. He and Senne stood together in the doorway of a closed record shop while he acclimated, Senne’s arm slung like a shield over his shoulders as he hauled in a few pacifying breaths, and within several moments he felt himself returning easily to normal.

“That was good,” said Senne, pride in his voice as he rubbed a hand through Sander’s darkened hair. “You’re getting better at this.”

“It’s still shit,” said Sander bluntly, and Senne laughed.

“Just think, when you come home in a hundred years or so you won’t feel it at all.”

“In a hundred years I won’t even  _ need _ to come back here,” said Sander, petty as he rolled his odd ice-shard eyes. “At the rate my dad is going he’ll probably be made into a demon of sloth and we’ll be chummy coworkers by then.” 

Senne studied him. “Would you like that? If your dad was Turned?”

Sander had truly never thought about it, and he didn’t care to start now, wasn’t in the headspace. “I don’t know. I’m more worried about my mum. One day I’ll find out where she went.”

Senne’s eyes when Sander found his gaze were muted, doleful. “I hope you do. What did you bring for your dad today?”

From the inner pocket of his thick denim jacket Sander produced a plastic-encased sheet of paper, upon one side of which he had hand-rendered a clear, thoughtful sketch of an autumn-shrouded mountain range. His range as an artist was astonishing and not for the first time Senne found himself drawn into Sander’s work, the intelligent, precise way he could depict mood with color, the masterfully blended shades of pumpkin-orange and crimson and subtle yellow. 

“Incredible as always, Driesen.”

“Eh.” Sander lowered his gaze, studying his drawing with the self-critical eye of a genius artist incapable of recognizing his own prowess. “It’s not my favorite. He loves the mountains, though, so I thought he might like it.”

“I know,” said Senne gently, ducking his head so Sander would look at him. “He used to take you and your mum to the Alps for vacation when she was alive.”

“Yeah,” said Sander, eyes brightening as he smiled, always surprised when Senne proved once again that he remembered the minute details of Sander’s life. No one since his mother had cared like Senne, paid such microscopic attention as he did, and these were the things that had gone such a long way towards Sander’s healing process. “Yeah, he did.”

“He’ll love it, Sander, for real,” said Senne. He rubbed a thumb over the knifeedge line of Sander’s cheekbone, all sincerity. “Jesus, it’s weird to see you without bloody eyes. Are you good to go?”

Sander swallowed, cleared his throat, stowed the drawing back within the safe confines of his jacket. “Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s do it.”

And so saying, he threw his hood over his head, buried his fists in his pockets, and stalked off down the street.

Each time they returned to Antwerp they chose a landing strip within a close radius of Sander’s old home; despite Sander’s assurances that no feelings of nostalgia would arise from their visits Senne enforced a hard-and-fast time limit of thirty minutes just in case, so there existed not a spare moment to spend on excessive travel. Sander was grateful that he’d conducted his shady human business in locations as far from his house as he could feasibly manage, because while he was capable of being within the vicinity of his father without becoming overly emotional, he was fully aware that seeing pieces of his former life would damage all the intense work he’d done to regain himself. Now, with the darkening sky above them a moody, effervescent stone and the feisty wind biting in through his layers of clothing, he found himself in a hurry to return to the LE. After visitation days Senne always planned something entertaining for them to do in the event that Sander needed a distraction, and he had a feeling that for whatever reason he’d need it tonight more than he had since the first time he’d been to his Earthly home as an Unholy. He shivered, hunched further forward to try to evade the nasty temperature.

“Please tell me I’ll stop having to deal with wind and cold and shit when I’m a High Demon.”

Senne chuckled. “It gets easier, yeah. Your skin toughens up.”

“I thought immortality would make me immune to discomfort.”

“Ah, Driesen, you know infinite existence would be boring if it was nothing but endless pleasure,” said Senne, as they hooked a left onto Sander’s old street. “Keeps you humble. Not that you ever were.”

“Yeah, well, I’m kind of at a disadvantage in that department, huh? Especially when I hear shit like  _ who isn’t blinded by their lust for him _ all the time,” said Sander, folding his lips over the snarky expression that leapt habitually to his face.

Through his hood Senne curled a hand around the nape of Sander’s neck, squeezed. From anyone else Sander would have interpreted the gesture as  _ watch yourself  _ but from Senne it was all affection. When his Maker spoke his voice was taunting, amused. “You’re good at your job, little one, it’s why Asmodeus has taken note of you. Besides, you have the thought of Jen’s Fledgling to keep you humble. Since he’s the one thing you can’t have, and all.”

“Says you. I’m less convinced every day.”

“Yeah?” Senne was grinning; he loved to rile Sander up, and the feeling was mutual. “Don’t tell  _ him _ that. He won’t like it if you act like an arrogant bastard all the time.”

“Hey now. Don’t forget that you’re the one who said my little crush was reciprocated,” said Sander, shrugging. “And how would you know what he likes? You’ve barely even spoken to him.”

“Angels don’t like cocky shit, Driesen,” said Senne. His face in the kaleidoscope twilight was wrought with guarded amusement. “The game changes when you’re dealing with Holies. Their whole thing is about sincerity and humility. Trust me.”

“The more we talk about this,” said Sander with great suspicion, “the more I feel like you know more than you’re telling me.”

“You could really say that about everything, though, couldn’t you?” Senne’s eyes were devious. “Since I’ve been here for about five more centuries than you have, and all. We’re here.”

And when Sander looked up he saw that Senne was right: they had indeed arrived on the sidewalk directly in front of his father’s tidy little apartment building.

By force of habit Sander sighed aloud; Senne pulled him in close with an arm hooking gently around his neck and Sander dropped his head sideways onto his Maker’s broad, solid shoulder.

“Do you want me to do it for you?”

“No,” said Sander, hating how small he was here in the shadow of his former life, how vulnerable. Every bit of him felt reduced to melancholy. “You can come with me, though.”

So, keeping their heads lowered and their eyes trained upon the ground to avoid notice, Sander and Senne walked through the entranceway to the base of Sander’s miserable human existence to leave a tiny gift in his father’s mailbox.

*

“Robbe.”

When Milan spoke, Robbe barely registered his words; the sylph-elf had chosen to Warp them into the direct center of downtown Eight and it was, to put things mildly, staggering. On all sides they were ringed in by imposing Gotham skyscrapers, the highest point of each culminating in some sort of pronged tip: a trident, a blade, an arrow, an inverted cross. Where the LP was a plethora of stone and statue and grimness, almost historical in its morose uniformity, Eight’s architectural theme felt like it had been designed by a modern assassin who was dearly fond of sharp weapons. Rips of white-yellow lightning broke the cave-black sky overhead; when Robbe raised his face he spotted rain, but before he could shut his eyes against the influx he realized that each angry sheet of water fell just short of hitting him in the face. The aesthetic of the place was largely monochrome, although far brighter than he had expected, and he was surprised to see that there was a major road system careening in and out of the mess of buildings. He waited, watching, but no vehicles appeared and his attention span under current circumstances could only be spared on one thing for about three seconds.

“ _ Robbe _ .”

Like he’d been smacked Robbe came abruptly back to himself.

“Yeah. Yes.”

“Amazing, isn’t it,” said Milan, smiling in an obsequious sort of manner. “Eight. Nine’s better, but this is where you’ll want to be, I think.”

“Oh yeah?” Robbe turned on his heel to scan the row of buildings behind them. “Why’s that?”

“Well, I would think that would be obvious,” said Milan, one index finger resting on the side of his face as he propped his chin on his knuckles. “You came to Lower Earth to catch a glimpse of your baby demon, yes?”

Instantly, as though he’d been spelled, Robbe’s attention was pulled away from his surroundings, back to his traveling companion. “Sander is here?”

“He lives here, yeah,” said Milan, blasé. “His Maker is a High Demon. He’s not an OG, so he doesn’t get Ninth Circle clout, but he’s about as high up as they go without being one of the Seven Princes or their ilk.”

Robbe was bewildered. “And you’ve known this the whole time?”

“I know everything there is to know about everyone of interest, little angel,” said Milan, with no shortage of smugness. “And your demon and his Elder are very,  _ very _ interesting. Shall we?”

Before Robbe could stop himself he said, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Milan looked at him, his lovely, faultless face impassive. For a moment, thinking of the volatile nature of both elves and sylphs alike, Robbe worried he had overstepped; he was about to apologize when Milan’s expression relaxed.

“Maybe you weren’t asking the right questions. Or maybe I don’t like to show my hand right away,” he said, winking. “Calm down, Robbe, you can’t offend me. You’re far too innocent for that. Come on.”

As they walked away from the circle of skyscrapers, Robbe turning his head in all directions so quickly he felt as though he’d get whiplash, Milan began to describe what they were seeing.

“So you know how Raksha designed Lesser Purgatory, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know how her weird theme of choice was to incorporate the traits of her dead lovers?”

“That she killed herself when she was bored with them, yeah.”

“Right. Gold star, angel,” said Milan breezily, and Robbe grinned. “So, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, there’s a big  _ sharp edges _ theme going on here, especially with the skyscrapers. That’s because Eight’s city center was dreamed up by Kuchisake-onna. She’s - ”

“The Slit-Mouthed Woman,” said Robbe, nodding distractedly as he watched a group of black-cloaked harpies crossing the road in front of them. They were speaking in a rough garbled language that he could not understand; the only discernible takeaway was the loud, plain excitement in their voices. “I know her.”

“Impressive,” said Milan, raising his eyebrows. “Did Jens tell you?”

“No,” said Robbe. “One of my best friends in high school was obsessed with Japanese folklore. He made me watch  _ The Ring _ and  _ The Grudge, _ like, nine hundred times. I picked up on it by proxy.”

“Hard not to, I guess,” said Milan cheerfully. “Anyway, if you know about her, then I’m sure you’re aware that she has a thing for sharp objects, so she incorporated as many of them as she could into her designs. If you go inside any of those skyscrapers you’ll see the same thing everywhere - paintings of katanas, benches in the shape of knives, the whole shebang.”

“I’m interested,” said Robbe instantly.

“Good thing you have all of infinity to explore, right?” Milan jerked his head to the left. “This way.”

As they wandered further away from the relentless activity of the city center, Robbe slowly began to acclimate to his new environment, but the downslope in nerves wasn’t quick enough. Even before they’d Warped away from Greater Purgatory his entire body had been poised for a negative reaction, his hackles at full attention, and he must have been emanating adrenaline because after a few moments Milan placed a hand between his rigid shoulderblades and said kindly,

“Do you want me to do a calming spell on you?”

Robbe laughed. “Fuck, am I that obvious?”

“Ooh. Hearing an angel swear always gets me excited,” said Milan, coy. “And yeah, you’re obvious. Let me? It’ll be much easier for you to play a convincing part if you’re able to chill.”

“Yeah,” said Robbe, breathing out once, hard. “Yeah, okay.”

Milan halted on the spot; behind them, a low grunting screech of protest erupted from the mouth of the succubus that evidently had been gliding along on their heels. To stop himself from yelping aloud Robbe jammed his fingernails into his palms, heartbeat pummeling at his chest, crawling out of his skin. 

“You can literally  _ go through us _ , thanks,” said Milan in irritation, and the succubus snapped its raptorlike teeth at him before it did just that. The sensation of being temporarily invaded by a ravenous ghoul was as unpleasant a feeling as Robbe had ever experienced; as it floated away like a stormcloud it turned its visage to stare back at them and Robbe had the distinct thought that it knew what he was.

“Can it sense me?”

Milan said in Dutch, “Does it know you’re an angel, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“No,” said Milan. “Succubi aren’t that smart. It’s probably not sure what you are, because it’s never encountered an angel before. You’re safe.”

He dropped a huge palm atop Robbe’s head.

“ _ Pacatus, aequanimus, securus,”  _ he murmured, “ _ placidus, placatus, tranquillus…” _

Instantly Robbe felt as though he had taken a muscle relaxer; his brain shifted from overdrive to neutral, and the overactive hum of his nervous system reduced to mere pleasant background noise. When he smiled dopily Milan smiled back at him.

“There,” he said, “better?”

“Is the spell for calming someone down literally just synonyms for peace in Latin?”

“You continue to surprise me, little one,” said Milan, his grin widening. “Are you fluent?”

“I’m getting there,” said Robbe. He could not remember the last time he had felt so completely unconcerned; it was exactly what he hadn’t known he needed after the merciless squall of the past few days. “I like language.”

“Your Common Tongue is excellent,” said Milan. “In no time you’ll be able to do your own calming spells, you won’t even need my help. We’re almost there, come on.”

“Milan,” said Robbe, because apparently being carefree also meant that he could temporarily be relieved of wondering whether or not a question was appropriate to ask, “how much do you know about Sander and Senne?”

“I told you,” said Milan patiently, “everything.”

“So you know where they live.”

“Yep,” chirped Milan, “and before you ask, no, I am not going to take you to their doorstep. We aren’t here for that, are we, Fledgling angel? At least if I say I brought you here to watch me play cards we can have a legitimate excuse when Daddy asks us why you smell like ash.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to take me there,” said Robbe, reddening. So accustomed was he by now to the golden glow that accompanied his angelic blush that it felt strange  _ not _ to see the gilt mist rising from his skin. “Really. I don’t care where you take me, this is incredible whether I see him or not.”

“Funnily enough,” said Milan, as they rounded the corner onto a tiny side street racked with shopfronts, various dark beings milling everywhere, “I believe you. Do you know anything about cards?”

“A thing or two,” said Robbe, gaping at their surroundings once more, “why, are you going to let me play?”

“Let you? Honey, participation is voluntary,” said Milan. He led Robbe down the line of shops to the left side of the street, coming to a stop at last before a store whose sole distinguishing feature was a shining diamond-colored door. “But I’d love to see you hold your own against these assholes. What are you?”

“A skinwalker.”

“And where do you live?”

“In the backwoods of Two, but I spend most of my time on Earth and in the LP,” recited Robbe, who had been fully prepped by Milan before the sylph-elf had deemed him ready to Warp into Lower Earth earlier, “and I’m relatively new to the skinwalker life, so no one really knows me yet.”

“Good,” said Milan, nodding his approval. “You’re ready.”

And with that, he turned the knob on the jewel-glimmering door and dragged Robbe by the wrist inside.

*

Mission accomplished, Senne permitted Sander to linger across the way from the apartment complex for a full, silent ten minutes before he tugged tenderly at his Fledgling’s elbow. He knew that Sander wanted to see his father in person, even from afar; he hadn’t laid eyes on the man since his second visit to Antwerp, and despite the fact that Mr. Driesen had been on his way to work and appeared relatively well, it had been incredibly difficult for Senne to calm Sander down when they’d returned to the LE. 

“Sander, we need to go.”

“I know,” said Sander croakily, and when he looked up at the sky Senne knew that his Fledgling was trying not to cry. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I just - ”

“I know,” said Senne. “It’s okay. You’ll see him again. But right now, it’s time to leave.”

Sander swiveled his head to look at him; his eyes were crystalline with unshed tears. Senne wished his Fledgling would learn that it was perfectly all right to cry when he needed to instead of holding everything inside until he became a demon volcano; he had improved vastly in this department since arriving in the LE, having broken down multiple times in front of Senne, but a long journey to complete healing still remained before him.

“Okay,” he said, nodding, and Senne led him gently behind the cluster of trees they’d been standing beside, checked discreetly around them to be sure they were alone. It was a chilly evening and outdoor human activity seemed to be quite limited, which worked to their advantage.

Sander shivered; a lone pearl of water trickled from his left eye and Senne smoothed it away with his thumb.

“Hey,” he said, “it’s all right.”

“I just hope he knows,” said Sander, soft, and Senne drew him in, stroked the back of his head. It was strange to behold him as he was; he looked incredibly young and far more vulnerable without the scarlet eyes and ghoul-pale skin to match that extreme white-blonde fluff of hair. This felt like the Sander Senne had recognized under all those layers of sex and drugs and fuck-you attitude, the one that had needed saving from himelf five years ago on the basement floor of a nameless club.

“He knows,” said Senne. “And no matter what, it says a whole  _ fuck _ of a lot about you and your character, that you’re doing this for him when he did nothing for you. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” said Sander, muffled against Senne’s t-shirt, and when he opened his eyes they were standing huddled together in a place Sander didn’t recognize - under yet another, quite different, tree. He raised his head, stepped back, looked around.

“Where are we?”

“Well,” said Senne, grinning slightly, “we still have a while before the enchantment wears off, right?”

“Yeah…”

“And we’re already on Earth, right?”

Sander furrowed his brow, quizzical, half-smiling for the burgeoning excitement on his Maker’s face. “Yeah…”

“So I know how much you love all that art shit, even though I don’t get it,” said Senne, waving a hand, “but that doesn’t matter. That guy you always talk about. Dolly.”

“Dali,” corrected Sander automatically, and when Senne winked Sander understood that he was teasing, stringing him along for the sake of a properly climactic revelation.

“Yeah, him. I did some research and it turns out there’s an exhibit of his stuff going on in Paris right now. So...I thought we could go see it. Sound ok?”

Even as the remainder of the tears hovering in his eyes slipped at last down his cheeks Sander was beaming; before he could shut himself up he blurted,

“I love you, Senne.”

Even though he had never spoken it aloud, it was the truth. Senne was his protector, his teacher, his best friend; his elder brother, his parent, his constant. He had saved Sander’s soul and he continued to do so on a regular basis, simply by reminding Sander that the things he cared about mattered. When Sander’s mother had died and his father had been reduced to little more than a hollow husk, he’d forgotten that he was capable of being cherished, treated with care and tenderness; he tore scraps of temporary self-worth from the flesh of others, their fleeting lustful adoration. Senne had been the one who had reminded him that he was important, and without him, Sander doubted very much that he would have been healed enough to look at Robbe with anything other than lust, because he would have remained so shattered that he could not distinguish between desire and affection. For all their jesting about Sander’s prowess at his demonic profession, it was understood that Senne valued him on a level far, far greater than physical. 

Sander was Senne’s family, and vice versa.

Senne looked at first quite startled, then quietly pleased, and when Sander laughed around a mouthful of tears, embarrassed, he smiled like a ray of light.

“I love you too, Driesen. Now come on, you idiot, let’s go look at art shit.”

And so, for the next several glorious hours, that was exactly what they did. Senne stood patiently watching while Sander hunkered down in front of the paintings to study them, listened while he rhapsodized about the use of this color  _ here _ and that color  _ there _ , asked questions when Sander shut up long enough for him to shove a word into the one-sided conversation. Sander appreciated his effort; Senne was not one for visual arts, preferring instead to lose himself in fiction, but he was certainly trying. By the time they approached the final exhibit he was beginning to catch on, and Sander watched him leaning in to examine the minute details of  _ Invictus  _ with pride.

“I’m gonna make an art enthusiast out of you yet, de Smet.”

“I don’t hate it,” said Senne musingly, which regarding art for him was about as enthusiastic as proclaiming his undying love. “I see where you’re coming from, I think.”

“It’s like you with Dostoyevsky,” said Sander cheerfully. “Except I’m louder about this, I think.”

“Jesus, I’d hope so. It’s hard to be loud about Russian literature,” said Senne, agreeable. “Have you had your fill, then,  _ kunstenaar _ ?”

Sander had. Their timing was impeccable; not five minutes after they’d Warped back into the Eighth Circle, Senne’s fangs came poking back out, and Sander’s hair melted from light blonde-brown to ferocious platinum. When his eyes began to drip scarlet liquid once again he sighed aloud.

“Thanks, Senne. For everything.”

“Anytime, kiddo,” said Senne sincerely. “I mean it.”

Sander took a gigantic breath, stretched his thin arms over his head; he was about to reply when abruptly his eyes waxed moon-gigantic; nostrils flaring, pinned in place, he looked at his Maker and swallowed before he spoke.

“Senne,” he said, and his voice was undulant, unsteady. “He’s here.”

Simply from observing his Fledgling’s body language, Senne knew, but he asked anyway. “Who?” 

“The angel,” whispered Sander. “ _ Robbe _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruh so this ended up being like 14 pages longer than I anticipated, and yeah, wow. I kind of went to town with Milan and Robbe because I was super inspired by their adorable wtFockdown Facetime call and I love their dynamic so much. <3 Also wanted to flesh out the depth of Sander and Senne's relationship a bit more because Senne is really the bridge between Sander's horrific previous life and hating himself and not knowing how to differentiate between lust and love. In the wake of all that loss he became Sander's found family and really taught him how to care for himself and others and allow himself to be cared for, and not just bought off. Senne also DOES know a lot more about the relationships between angels and demons than he's letting on and we're gonna learn all about that pretty soon. :D 
> 
> Anyway, yeah. Hope you guys enjoy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Robbe discovers that the LE isn't so bad after all, and Senne and Milan are KIND OF enablers.

Prior to subjecting himself to Milan’s calming spell, Robbe had been apprehensive about being easily identified for what he truly was, but the combination of magical tranquility and all-consuming fascination with his surroundings had worked well to cleanse his mind of fear. By the time he’d watched Milan go through a quick hand of poker with his motley crew of Wendigoan, all of them situated smack-center at a table in the strange nameless diamond-doored club, he felt almost as though he belonged.

Never before had he been close enough to a Wendigo to observe its countenance; according to lore they appeared on Earth as gigantic, emaciated, gremlinlike humanoids, but in truth each could choose to present physically how they wished. Two of the creatures sitting at the table with Milan and Robbe now appeared relatively human, both dressed in typical attire with scads of long straight dark hair and obsidian eyes to match, but the third had remained in his (its? Robbe wasn’t sure) Earth-skin after returning from a jaunt in the backwoods of North America. In a gruesome sort of way, the dagger teeth and wrinkly skin and dirty claws were fascinating to behold, but the creature smelled awful, like a mixture of wet soil and copper, and when he pulled up the chair situated between his two companions they were all too happy to rag him about it. It turned out that Wendigoes had extraordinarily dry senses of humor.

“Keme,” said the huskier of the two human-skinned Wendigoan, whose name Robbe had recently learned was Onas, “you smell like a fucking grave. Showering before entering a public space is encouraged, you know.”   
  


The smaller of the two, called Sachem, looked up just long enough from where he was shuffling the deck of cards to throw Keme a withering, judgmental glance.

  
“Seriously. I don’t think the stench of death and dirt is going to make a good impression on our new friend.” 

“I don’t care,” said Robbe, smirking, although of course it was a lie; he wasn’t entirely certain he had any nostril hairs left after inhaling Keme’s odor. “I shed skins multiple times an Earth week. I’m used to the smell of flesh.”

Keme looked at Robbe through terrifying red-ringed black eyes and flashed a row of bloodstained teeth. 

“Elf-creature,” he said to Milan, in a voice like rain and rockslides, “I like this one. You can bring him again.”

“I told you guys he was cool,” said Milan over the rim of his smoking goblet, grinning at Robbe. “Skinwalkers are amusing beings. We need to bring them around more often.”

“How’s your Belgian population doing?” Sachem was dealing cards without even looking where he was throwing; Robbe had declined to participate in the first round so as to observe and catch himself up from the sidelines, but his true motivation for sitting out was to study his tablemates. “Or do you know? You’re fairly new, right?”

“Brand new,” said Milan. “He’s not allowed to go back home yet, even if he promises to wear another skin. He’s considered too fresh by the council.”

“It’s the same for us,” said Onas. “In the early days after we’re turned, our judgment is said to still be clouded by human emotions.”

“Ridiculous,” muttered Keme.

“Just because  _ you  _ were a cannibalistic wretch in your human life,” snapped Sachem, and Robbe bit back a grin; the dynamic between these three was exasperated and tetchy, but underneath the craggy exterior he was sensing vibes that were quite brotherly. Milan had informed him as they were walking down the stairs to the club’s entrance that the three of them often hunted in a triad, and thus held dominion over several neighboring provinces in Northern Ontario. 

“It’s unusual, I’ll admit,” he’d said, “most Wendigoan are solitary creatures. But these three just prefer a life of brotherhood, I suppose.”

Robbe could see why. It made sense that even flesh-ravenous monsters got lonely in the backwoods sometimes.

“So I was a little ahead of my time,” said Keme now, shrugging. He was inordinately thin, chestbones poking up through his gray skin like tipped arrows, wrists bird-fragile and knobby, skeletal fingers ending in dingy overlong nails. “Food was scarce around my farm when I was mortal. I had to make do.”

“Some humans really are born to become a Wendigo, hmm,” said Milan, tutting; by now Sachem had finished distributing the table’s cards and he picked up his hand to examine what he’d been dealt, frowning neutrally as he did so. 

Robbe followed suit. It had been ages since he’d played a proper round of poker but he figured he’d catch back on, and if he didn’t, the club offered plenty of entertainment to keep him occupied. The ceiling drooped heavy and dark above their heads, a pellucid graveyard mist permeating the purplish air, and the walls were overrun with photos of Earth-famous humans who had posthumously become one sort of Unholy or another. They were all posing with the same two flame-haired hags, who Robbe surmised were the bar’s proprietors; as his gaze skipped from surface to surface, he found himself smirking at the similarities to the common dive bars he and his friends had haunted as university students. Its inhabitants, too, were shockingly analogous to many of his former classmates; he couldn’t be certain, but he was almost positive that the majority of the patrons here were demons, all appearing extremely humanlike - albeit in a very dark sort of way - as they idled at the bar or ringed in groups around tables. In keeping with this assumption, the common language of the establishment seemed to be Latin; Robbe had deduced that this was a favorite tongue of the darker side of the afterlife and wondered abstractly if Sander was fluent.

As it happened, he hadn’t lost his penchant for poker; over the course of multiple lightning rounds he held his own, winning once and taking second twice. The Qendigoan tribe continued to surprise him with their intelligent, deadpan banter, and he was so immersed within the game that he almost forgot his original purpose for following Milan into the LE. That is, until Milan stood up, stretching his arms above his head, and entreated Robbe to join him for a drink at the bar. 

“Let’s take a break, shall we? I want to show you around.”

“Take as long as you need,” said Onas, without the slightest deviance in expression. “If you’re away for a while it will give Keme enough time to go home and take a  _ fucking shower _ .”

“I resent that,” said Keme amicably, scraping what looked alarmingly like a piece of flesh out from between his front fangs with one sharp nail. The three were still nitpicking at each other as Robbe and Milan walked away from the table and when they were out of earshot Robbe laughed out loud. 

“ _ They’re _ a fun crew.”

“Told you,” said Milan, grinning. “How are you feeling, honey? Comfortable?”

“Surprisingly,” said Robbe. “It’s not that different from the hole-in-the-walls I used to visit with my university friends. Except, you know, there are actually demons here.”

“There were probably some there, too, you just didn’t know it,” Milan pointed out, as they approached the bar. “What’s your poison?”

Robbe blanked; he’d just caught sight of the bartender, an extraordinarily tall woman with alabaster eyes and an arrow-tipped tail, razoredge teeth and three perfect clawmark scars slicing lengthwise along her right cheek. She was fearsome enough to render him nearly speechless. “Um…”

“I think I can guess,” said Milan, smirking wisely before he pressed up against the side of the bar, entirely familiar and entirely unafraid. “ _ Aleida _ , baby, how are you?”

“Mil- _ aaaaaaaan _ ,” cooed the scary woman, in a far softer voice than Robbe had been anticipating. “Oh, I’m fine, I suppose, just existing. You know how it goes. Who’s your cute little friend?”

“Oh, Aleida, don’t call him cute, he spent all this time getting dressed up,” said Milan on a pout, and at last Robbe regained his linguistic skills.

“I think you mean  _ you  _ spent all this time dressing me up,” he corrected, gentle. To the alarming woman - who had become decidedly less terrifying after she’d opened her mouth to speak - he added, “Hi. I’m Robbe.”

“Aleida. Charmed.” Up close her eyelashes were the deepest shade of coal-black, true absence of color against the contrasting milk of her eyes. “What’ll you have, gentlemen?”

“Snakeroot for me,” said Milan. “A Rosary for him. Please and thank you, beautiful.”

“I might have guessed,” said Aleida, and Robbe thought she rolled her eyes but the color was so uniform it was impossible to tell. At any rate she was smiling as she got to work; this only served to heighten his apprehension.

“Why’s it called a Rosary?”

“Because if you drink too much of it, it’ll make you sin, and you’ll need a rosary to hold while you’re saying all your Hail Marys,” said Milan, grinning. “In excess, it’s like the Afterlife version of tequila shots.”

“ _ Milan _ ,” groaned Robbe, “it’s not even Drinking Night.”

“So? It’s your off period,” said Milan, tapping his plum-colored nails on the countertop next to Robbe’s arm. “First timers in this club have to try a Rosary, it’s tradition. Besides, you know as well as I do that it’ll take way more than just one to really affect you, holy boy.”

Robbe threw him an unamused look. “Hilarious.”

Milan raised a shoulder quick to his ear, grinned, Marilyn Monroe. “I know I am.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Robbe was watching Aleida at work; she was clearly a wizened professional, carrying a full, effortless conversation with her next patron as she mixed ingredients for their drinks without one glance down at her hands. In low Dutch he asked, “What species is she?”

“Her father is some kind of minor Egyptian deity,” said Milan in the same tongue. “Her mother is a nephilim.”

“Child of Lilith,” said Robbe in soft awe. “How many are there?”

“Countless,” said Milan, aloof. “Lilith has been a busy girl. The combination is an odd one, though, I ought to ask how her parents met. Have you seen your demon lover anywhere?”

Robble flushed hot and dark. “I think you’d know if I had. And he’s not my  _ lover _ .”

“Not yet,” said Milan cheerfully, as though the outcome of Robbe and Sander’s precarious relationship was inevitable. “Heard you saw him again at the Hydra Milking, how’d that go?”

Wrongfooted, Robbe gawked at him. “How did you know  _ that _ ?”

“I am on very good terms with his Elder,” said Milan smugly. “We communicate often.”

“Does Senne know that we’re here, then?”

“I certainly didn’t tell him,” said Milan, as Aleida placed their drinks carefully before them. “Thanks, gorgeous. What’s the cost today?”

She considered him. “What have you got?”

“A little wormwood, a little venom from your favorite serpent…”

“The basilisk venom will do,” said Aleida, grinning. “And I want to see this one’s reaction when he tries his first Rosary. New to the LE, are you, skinwalker?”

With mild foreboding, still dazed from Milan’s admission about being friends with Senne, Robbe examined the cocktail glass she’d placed on the smooth black countertop before him. The liquid inside resembled one of the many Old Fashioneds he’d consumed on Earth; to elevate the effect, it was even garnished with a plastic inverted cross, upon which had been skewered a drip-dark black cherry. “What gave it away?”

Milan raised his own chalice, smirked. “Cheers.”

Robbe echoed him, tapped his glass against Milan’s own, raised the drink to his mouth and swallowed. The liquid went down much more smoothly than he’d feared; it was subtly smoky and clearly potent, but pleasant in a tart, woodsy sort of way. He narrowed his focus on the flavor as he let the first sip settle within the confines of his stomach. 

“Yeah,” he said slowly, nodding; then, once he’d established that there was no lasting aftereffect, he added more firmly, “yes. ”

“Ah,” said Aleida, smiling, “easy, isn’t it? That’s what makes it so dangerous. You can chug it like water and you won’t even notice you’re wrecked until it’s too late.”

“The true mark of a good cocktail,” said Milan, reaching into his pocket for the leftover vial of snake venom. “Here you go, babe. We might be back for another round, but if not, I’m sure I’ll see you soon. I’m going to show this one around your fine establishment.”

“Ooh, take him to the back room,” said Aleida. Even as she pocketed Milan’s payment she was already hard at work on her next patron’s drink. “Charmed, Robbe. Come see me again, yeah?”

“What’s in the back room?” said Robbe, waving at her as he followed Milan away from the bar, deeper into the club. 

“Well, lots of things. Live music, for one,” said Milan. “And I’m not talking  _ guitars and singer songwriters _ . It’s very popular on Drinking Night, especially when there isn’t also a Fight Night scheduled, but it’s pretty much always at least steadily busy. A lot of higher-ranking demons and Unholies hang out there, so on the off chance that Sander is here but hasn’t yet Sensed your divine presence, he’d probably be in the back room with Senne. They’re both into that scene.”

“Can anyone go in?” The pace of Robbe’s heartbeat had increased to a mild jog; he knew that Sander’s ability more or less nullified the prospect of finding the demon first, but the thought thrilled him all the same. “Or just the higher ranking beings?”

“It’s open to anyone who wants access, unless a private party is being held,” said Milan lightly. He held his drink out and automatically Robbe took it. “Try this.”

“What is it?”

“Just trust me,” said Milan, and obligingly Robbe took a measured sip. The flavour was strangely contradictory, immediate acrid bitterness followed by a shock of saccharine, and he screwed up his face.

“This tastes like a Sour Patch Kid.”

“I know, right?” Milan was beaming. “Not to your liking?”

“I’d rather  _ eat _ my candy, thanks,” said Robbe, handing it back to him. “But back up a second. How do you know Senne so well? How did you meet him?”

“Oh, I’ve known him for ages,” said Milan dismissively, like it was nothing. “ _ Way _ before Sander became a demon. I remember when Senne first started scoping him as a potential Fledgling, we had a drink or two over conversation about it. One of those conversations was here in the back room of this club.”

Robbe was mildly stunned. “Senne talked to you about Turning Sander?”

“He did.”

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, yes,” said Milan, the corners of his mouth quirking up. “Funny how existence works, isn’t it, doll? I’ve counseled Senne about several of his candidates, actually. He’s very smart, that one, he doesn’t really need my help.”

“What does he look for in his Fledglings?”

“A range of things,” said Milan thoughtfully. “I couldn’t say for sure, exactly. But he does tend to look for humans who have reached the lowest of the low. People who have been dealt, ah -  _ unfortunate _ hands in their Earthly lives, who would benefit greatly from the Turning, you might say. Senne likes to give his Fledglings the opportunity to start again, really  _ enjoy _ existing, without any interference from the restrictions of mortal life. From what I understand he went through a similar experience when he was human, which is very common for demons. People who lead charmed lives don’t often have what it takes to become an Unholy, unless their lives are  _ too  _ opulent, in which case they’re usually taken on by demons of pride or sloth.”

“So you’re telling me,” said Robbe slowly, drinking Milan’s words as though they were the most delectable of honies, so absorbed he was quite blind even to his fascinating surroundings, “Sander’s human life was shit?” 

“Robbe, if I told you that Fledgling’s background,” said Milan with uncharacteristic frankness, “it would break your holy little heart.”

That minor admission alone was enough to pour a thimble of hot disquiet into Robbe’s stomach, disturb his peace even through the strength of the calming spell. As they continued to wend their cautious way through the tables and crowds of Unholy beings scattered throughout the vastness of the diamond-doored club he said quietly, “What happened to him?”

Milan lifted one shoulder, a quick rueful smile passing across his mouth. “It’s not my place to get into all that. Ask him yourself sometime.” He studied Robbe’s face, exhaled sympathetically as he chucked him under the chin. “Don’t look so sad, little one, he’s all right now. No matter what Jens has told you about demons, Senne is a good being, and he wants nothing but the best for his Fledglings. Sander is in very capable hands.”

Caught out, Robbe rearranged his face, cleared his throat before he took a too-large swallow of his fiery drink. “That’s good. I mean, it’s whatever, I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

“He can now,” said Milan, grinning, “and stop acting like you don’t give a fuck. How many times have we been over the reason why you were so eager to be my date to Lower Earth today?”

Robbe sputtered, hot rush of blood staining his cheeks once again. “Okay, but that’s not the  _ only  _ reason - ”

“Please,” said Milan, scoffing. “Spare me. It’s a sin to lie, you know. Are we going to have to sin some more by lying to Daddy Jens about where we’ve been all this time when we see him later?”

“No,” said Robbe, laughing. “I can’t lie to him. I can avoid the topic for a while sometimes, if I try hard enough. But I think he already kind of suspected where we were going, so there’s no point.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Milan. He came to a gentle halt and Robbe looked round; they were now standing before a set of floor-to-ceiling hunter-green double doors, dauntingly huge and so magnificently polished they shone bright as faerie lights even in the dimness of the club. 

“This feels like the entrance to the Emerald City,” said Robbe.

“That’s a popular description for many places in the LE, actually. But, sorry to disappoint you, it’s not quite that exciting,” said Milan, grinning. “Shall we go in?”

“We shall,” said Robbe, so Milan turned the glass knob on the right-side door and pushed it inward.

*

“How can you possibly know he’s here?”

Senne was watching Sander closely; his Fledgling’s eyes were huge and honed, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the air. His entire demeanor was that of a predator which had correctly identified its prey and was now locked on for the killing blow.

“I just know,” said Sander, and his voice was tremulous, husky. “Nothing feels like he does, Senne, especially not here. He feels like light and everything else in the LE is always so, so dark.”

“But that makes no sense,” said Senne, nonplussed. “An unauthorized mid-tier Fledgling angel in Eight? There’s no way Stoffels would bring him, and he wouldn’t come alone...unless…”

Sander’s eyes snapped to him, quick like the release of a taut rubber band. 

“Unless what?”

Senne’s expression went blank as he thought.

“Driesen,” he said slowly, “give me a general direction of the source of what you’re Sensing.”

Sander didn’t question him for a second; without a beat of hesitation he raised a dark-nailed beringed hand and pointed to his left. From the wry humor flooding Senne’s eyes Sander understood that his Maker’s unspoken suspicions had been confirmed. Again he said,

“Unless  _ what,  _ Senne?”

Senne dropped his head back and laughed at the sky and the cadence of his voice was all helpless irony. 

“Fucking  _ Milan.  _ I know where your baby angel is. Do you want to go find him?”

“What the fuck kind of question is that,” said Sander, reaching up to flick away the onslaught of scarlet liquid that had begun to pour down his cheekbones; his adrenaline was  _ pulsing  _ and he felt as amped as he’d been watching Atropos go to war with the Hydra head. “ _ Yes  _ I want to find him. Where is he? How do you know?”

“Just trust me,” said Senne, rolling his eyes. “If I’m right, you owe me big time.”

“I  _ already _ owe you big time,” said Sander, grinning. “Lead on.”

So Senne, after flicking his Fledgling fondly on the tip of the nose, took off in the direction Sander had indicated. Not five minutes into their journey, having taken calculated stock of their surroundings, Sander already had a guess as to where they were headed, and his entire body thrilled with excitement.

“Did you say  _ Milan _ ?”

“I did.”

“Are we going to the diamond-doored club?”

“Maybe.” Senne was amused and in that moment Sander was so, so grateful for him; not only was his Maker being cool as fuck about his ridiculous crush on Robbe the forbidden angel, he was  _ taking Sander to find him.  _ “You’ll see.”

“Oh my god.” Sander was thrumming with emotion. “We’re totally going to the diamond-doored club. De Smet, you sly dog, why are you helping me?  _ All roads lead to pain _ ?”

Senne turned his head to look at Sander as they walked and the expression in his eyes was nothing but genuine. 

“If you’re right, and I’m right, and Robbe is here,” said Senne, “why do you think that is?”

Sander reeled slightly from Senne’s unprompted use of Robbe’s name. 

“What do you — why do I think he’s here?”

“Uh huh.”

“Um,” said Sander, not daring to voice his initial, hopeful instinct, “I don’t know?”

“Yes you do,” said Senne. “Your angel asked Milan to take him to Eight in the hopes of finding you. He wants to see you again, Driesen, and he must want to see you  _ pretty _ damn badly if he’s going behind Stoffels’ back to ask the sylph-elf for help.”

“Will he get in trouble?” 

“Would you be in trouble with me if you snuck into the UA without my knowledge?”

Sander felt his jaw go slack. “Can demons even  _ do _ that?”

“With the right magic,” said Senne frankly, “yes. But you’d need help from a being as powerful as Milan, and don’t you fucking dare get any ideas. I’d rather know about whatever stupid shit you’re about to pull so I can go with you, or help you, or bail you out if I need to. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Sander, humble, and he smiled. “Have I told you you’re the best?”

“Quit sucking my ass,” said Senne, but his eyes were warm honey. “You’ll need to save your energy if you’re gonna keep your cool in front of your baby angel.”

He was not wrong, and they both knew it. So, for the remainder of their short trek to the East club district of Eight, Sander was silent, overwrought from excitement and nerves, struggling to leash himself as they drew ever nearer to their destination. By the time they’d reached the entrance he was positively jittery. 

“Yes,” he said, the moment they’d hit the bottom stair. “You were right. One hundred percent, he’s here.”

“And one hundred percent, Milan brought him,” said Senne, grinning. “Look who’s at that center table.”

Sander’s heart leapt; he looked up, expecting to see Robbe, but instead his gaze fell upon something very different and very unexpected: Sachem, Keme, and Onas, the three Wendigoan with whom Milan, Senne, and Sander had played many a hand of cards.

“Fuck.”

“Getting real, isn’t it?” Senne scrubbed a big affectionate hand through Sander’s hair, patted him between the shoulder blades. “Let’s go say hi.”

In a haze Sander followed his Maker through the densely-packed rows of tables; as they walked Senne was hailed multiple times, and he returned the greetings with nods or brief smiles of acknowledgement. It never failed to astonish Sander how well-known Senne was: it seemed as though everywhere they went, whether on Earth or Purgatory or the various levels of the LE, they ran into someone he was at the very least  _ acquainted _ with. Senne always took this in his stride, claiming that it was impossible  _ not  _ to accumulate familiarity with a great deal of the population after being in existence for so long, but Sander couldn’t imagine garnering that kind of quiet fame. 

“De Smet,” said Sachem in his doleful voice, when Senne and Sander had reached their table; instantly Sander took note of the two vacant chairs on either side. “Driesen. Haven’t seen you in a while. The sylph-elf is here, too, have you come to meet with him?”

“Yeah, actually,” said Senne, and Sander tried to arrange his facial expression in a way that did not immediately broadcast his deep inner shock. “Was he playing poker with you guys? Do you know where he went?” 

“To get a drink,” said Keme. Sander was unsurprised to see that the eldest of the three Wendigoan had not shed his Earth-skin and when he took in a deep breath of air he was nearly levelled by the scent of raw flesh; Keme, as was his custom, had obviously come to the bar straight from a hunt. “He has a skinwalker companion with him tonight.”

“A skinwalker, huh,” said Senne, and he and Sander exchanged a triumphant, uninterpretable glance. “Keme, Jesus, you need to bathe.”

Onas cracked a grin; it was strange to see a wendigo smile, in Sander’s experience their natures were quite stoic, at least outwardly. “We keep trying to fucking tell him.”

“I do not like water,” said Keme staunchly. “And I did not want to be late to our game of poker.”

“That’s a bullshit excuse and you know it,” said Sachem. “High Demon. Fledgling. Will you join us for a hand?”

“Maybe in a bit,” said Senne, scanning the back of the club. “We’re going to find Milan first.”

He zeroed in on Keme, made a complicated little hand motion before his face; immediately the air cleared of its heavy rank stench and Sachem and Onas exhaled sighs of relief.

“Lucifer bless you.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Senne, grinning as Keme huffed aloud. “Enjoy your game.”

“He needs a personal hygienist,” said Sander under his breath, as soon as they were out of earshot of the table.

“Wendigoan are strange creatures to begin with,” said Senne, with exasperated amusement. “And Keme is  _ very _ ancient. I think he stopped giving a fuck a long time ago.” 

“Which is fine for him,” said Sander. He was jabbering, anxious, and he knew it. “Just not for the rest of us. He smells like a plague crypt.”

“Tell me about it. Driesen, calm down,” said Senne, looking sideways at him as he smiled. “You’ve been such a smooth motherfucker in front of your angel every time, don’t tell me you’re nervous now.”

Sander swatted at him. “How the fuck would you react, then, Rico Suave?”

Senne tilted his head, twisted his mouth; it appeared as though he was genuinely considering what he might do were he in Sander’s situation. “Dunno. I don’t really get nervous for other beings anymore. Keme stopped giving a fuck about the way he smelled, I stopped giving a fuck about what others think of me. Plus I can, you know, pretty much take my pick. Hang on.”

He threw out an arm. Sander, who had removed his attention from what was directly in front of him to shoot his Maker a dubious look, smacked into it and halted on the spot. 

“Humble much?”

“Just honest,” said Senne, smirking, one eyebrow bridged. “There’s the bar. Do you see your angel anywhere?”

Obediently Sander gave the row of patrons stationed at the bar a fleeting once-over, but he’d been Sensing both Robbe and Milan — who, like Robbe, felt different than most things in the LE, albeit in a much more subtle, neutral way — since they’d walked into the club, and he was already almost certain of where exactly they could be found.

“No. They're in the back.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah.” Sander’s pupils were massive, streams of crimson flooding his porcelain cheeks. “Definitely. I can feel Milan, too. It’s strong in that direction.”

“Let’s go then,” said Senne, and he grabbed Sander’s wrist and took off once again.

As they walked Sander found his mind reaching desperately for something to alleviate his anxiety, some comfortable thought to grasp, and he thought back to the many off periods they’d spent at this very club. In Sander’s early days as a demon Senne had taught him to play blackjack like a casino shark here; Sander, in turn, had taught Senne how to dance — truly  _ dance _ , not merely jump around and wave his arms a bit, and the first time Sander had managed to drag Senne onto the floor had been a hilarious disaster. Mid-motion, lost to the one thing that had been consistently able to make him feel any sort of natural positive emotion during his darkest human days, Sander had caught sight of Senne awkwardly flailing about and paused to watch; when Senne had realized Sander was observing him he’d stopped what he was doing immediately. In those days it was not often that Sander expressed obvious amusement and Senne had figured his bad dancing was worth it for the sake of his melancholy Fledgling’s brief happiness, but he hadn’t been  _ about _ to keep going just to be humiliated. 

Sander had tried, and failed, not to shake his head.

“How are you this many centuries old and your signature move is still the simultaneous _ jump and fist pump _ ?”

Senne had  _ pshaw _ ed and rolled his calm lilac eyes.

“I don’t know, Driesen, demons of wrath don’t typically make it a priority to learn to dance like a stripper. That’s your specialty.”

“You’re damn skippy, considering I was  _ literally a stripper _ ,” Sander had said, arching an eyebrow. “I’ll teach you. Watch me.”

Now as they emerged through those memorable emerald doors into the loud midnight darkness of the back room Sander elbowed Senne jovially in the side and grinned.

“Remember when you used to dance like a forty-year-old man at an 80s wedding?”

“Fuck you,” said Senne, mock-stern, “that’s part of my charm. Now I have the dance moves of both white-dad-at-a-barbecue  _ and  _ professional stripper in my arsenal. If that isn’t diversity, I don’t know what is.”

“Can’t argue with that,” said Sander, “but if I have my way I think you might be stuck with Milan tonight, de Smet. I’m curious about whether or not dancing is too serious of a sin for an angel of chastity to commit.”

“Dancing? No.” Senne was smirking. “Slutty grinding with a demon of lust? That’s pushing it. Be careful or you’ll scare him away, little one.”

“Didn’t scare him away from coming to the LE to find me, did I?”

“Guess you didn’t,” said Senne, his focus locking on a point across the room, mouth curling into a slow, satiated smile. “You struck gold with that Ability, Driesen. Looks like we’ve reached the end of the rainbow.”

At Senne’s words Sander felt his heart momentarily cease to beat; he tracked his Maker’s gaze through the blurry undulant blackness of the crowd — which was surprisingly thick for the middle of a day shift — and found exactly the being for whom he’d spent the last half Earth hour frantically searching. Despite the undeniable force of Robbe’s energy, recognizable as a ray of lovely gleam-gold light ribboning through Sander’s Senses, part of him could not truly trust what he was seeing. Fledgling Angels in the LE — especially those without their Makers around — had been a myth to him until very recently, and at his core he was still programmed to doubt almost everything in his existence that had the potential to be  _ good _ . 

The being that for all intents and purposes appeared to be Sander’s ethereal Fledgling angel was laughing with Milan against the left side of the room, features dark and muted in the low matte light, and as Sander and Senne moved like a delayed dream ever closer to the pair Sander began to notice that Robbe looked different. 

_ Good _ -different.

_ Very  _ good-different.

“Holy fucking shit,” said Senne under his breath, just as Sander stopped, goggling, in his tracks, “Milan must have charmed him.”

If Sander hadn’t known Robbe’s countenance by heart he wouldn’t have recognized him up close. His bare forearms were the translucent hue of a spectre, nails painted black as the bottom of the sea, eyes that had brightened to an unsettling shade of opalescent framed with close-drawn kohl; he was adorned in rings and dark clothes and his thick unkempt hair had been colored so dark as to be almost black. The change that threw Sander the most, however, was the addition of the single shimmering white-silver hoop through Robbe’s left earlobe. He was staring at it openmouthed when in near-perfect tandem Robbe and Milan turned their heads and found Sander and Senne standing before them. 

“Well, well, well,” said Milan with obvious satisfaction, “look what the cat dragged in.”

Robbe met Sander’s blatant gaze with those strange arresting eyes and smiled like a fiend. 

“Close your mouth, Driesen,” he said imperiously, and Sander’s entire body went up in flames. “It’s impolite to stare.”

Milan didn’t even attempt to hide his glee. 

“We didn’t expect to see  _ you  _ here, gentlemen.”

Senne snorted, disbelieving. “Hendrickx. Come on.”

“What?” Milan raised his shoulders, took an innocent sip of his drink. “ _ I  _ certainly didn’t, did you, Robbe?”

“Not at all,” said Robbe agreeably, still with that absolutely impious expression on his face; Sander wanted to lick the taste of smugness from his lips, drink from him like an enchanted well. “We came to explore the Eighth Circle and play a few hands of poker with Milan’s Wendigo friends. How would I even begin to know where to find you?”

“ _ You _ wouldn’t, Fledgling angel,” said Senne, amused, “but  _ he  _ would. Did you happen to tell Robbe, Milan, that Sander and I have played cards with you and those same Wendigoan on countless occasions? Or that the back room of this club is one of our favorite places to relax during an off period?”

“Well,” said Milan, examining the tips of his flawless fingernails one by one, “I might have mentioned it. A little. But I was going to take him here anyway, so it’s a moot point, Senne baby. Besides, we’ve been here for  _ ages _ , and we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of you.”

Sander, who had been struggling against the ruthless, traitorous shutdown of his own brain, finally came back to himself.

“So if you’ve been here for  _ ages _ ,” he said, mimicking Milan’s emphasis, “I guess we need to start drinking to catch up to you, then. What do you want, de Smet?”

“You know what I like,” said Senne, licking around the half-moon of his upper teeth as he shook his head at Milan in reluctant humor. “Surprise me.”

“Done,” said Sander, “come on, then,  _ engel _ , if you’re here to explore there’s no better being to show you around than me.”

And with confidence that he hadn’t known he could muster under the current circumstances he jerked his head to the side and led Robbe through the swell of beings in the direction of the back bar.

“You,” said Senne, as he and Milan watched their backs disappearing into the melee, “are a fucking nuisance.”

“Do  _ not _ even give me that shit, de Smet, you’re no better than me and you know it,” said Milan sternly. “Let me guess, Sander Sensed him in Eight and you knew exactly where you’d find us?”

“Your choice of hangouts is getting predictable, Hendrickx.”

“Spending too much time with me, then, I guess,” said Milan, with not a little triumph in his voice.

“He looks good,” said Senne grudgingly. “You did a solid job on him, I’d have had no idea what he was if I didn’t know his face. But then again, Sander was the one who sniffed him out at Fight Night in the first place. I didn’t have a clue about his true nature until Stoffels showed up to claim him.”

His luminous eyes went to slits.

“Speaking of Jens. Does he…?”

“Know his little one is here? Not yet,” said Milan with great cheer. “But he’ll find out later. Robbe won’t hide this from him. He said there would be no point, because he thinks Jens already kind of knows.”

“I would not,” said Senne grimly, “be shocked. These two are going to end me.”

“Jens and Robbe, or Sander and Robbe?”

“Christ, at this rate, maybe all three,” said Senne. He looked at Milan and his face was open. “It’s just you two here? No other stragglers?”

Milan chuckled knowingly. 

“Were you hoping for someone specific?”

“No,” said Senne, voice casual, staunch, but he refused to meet Milan’s inquisitive eyes. “Just wondering.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Milan, grinning. “But it’s just us. It was kind of a last minute thing, you know. The little Fledgling is getting braver.”

“Clearly. Jesus,” said Senne, with a complete lack of venom. “Well, we had better settle in. If I know Sander he’s going to try to keep Robbe alone for as long as possible so he can seduce him properly, without any side interference from us.”

“Don’t be so sure it’s your baby demon who’s doing all the seducing,” said Milan, and one side of Senne’s mouth rose in grim acknowledgement.

“I’ve never seen him like this.”

“Why are you allowing it?” Milan’s face was honest now, all genuine curiosity. “Isn’t this sort of thing, like, number one on the list of no-nos between angels and demons?  _ Thou shalt not sleep with thine enemy _ , or whatever?”

Senne sighed and it was  _ pained _ .

“You know why,” he said, low, and Milan didn’t have to go deeper to understand exactly what he meant.

*

“To be perfectly honest,” said Sander breezily, as he and Robbe picked their skillful way through the faceless crowd of beings dominating the dance floor. “I don’t really give a fuck about getting a drink. I just wanted to get you alone.”

Even before Sander finished his sentence Robbe was grinning; with easy sarcasm he said,

“Yeah? I would never have guessed.”

Sander forced himself to peel his gaze from the sharp dangerous glint of Robbe’s earring.

“Am I seriously that bad at bullshitting?”

“When you don’t care if anyone knows you’re bullshitting? Yeah. You’re kind of awful,” said Robbe, laughing. In the uncertain shifting dimness the doctored color of his eyes was strange and startling. 

“You’re not wrong,” said Sander, nonchalant, uncaring, and then without missing a single beat he added: “Why did you come here, Robbe?”

“I’ll let your imagination play with the answer to that question for a while,” said Robbe smoothly. His stomach was hot, heart jamming against the cell of bones in his chest, but his wit was quick as ever and he was ready for Sander’s tactics. 

“Well fuck me, aren’t  _ you _ coy,” said Sander, delighted. “All right, I’ll humor you. Where’s Daddy? Surely he’s not on board with this little day trip?”

“He’s on Earth, doing big boy things,” said Robbe, with great luxuriance dripping from his tone. “We aren’t always attached at the hip like you and  _ your  _ Maker. Speaking of him, how long is he gonna let you get away with being alone with me?”

“No idea,” said Sander easily. “But I know fresh blood will keep him happy for a while. Probably enough to let me really take  _ advantage _ of the fact that you’re actually here.”

“Mm.” Robbe was amused, alive with interest, determined not to broadcast his verve. “And how exactly do you plan to do that?”

Sander’s grin was hot and wolflike. 

“However you’ll let me. This is my world, Robbe. I want to show it off to you.”

“If I didn’t know any better,” said Robbe, measuring his words to mask the thrill that Sander could strike in him with a single loaded sentence, “I’d think you were implying something.”

“Then let’s just say you don’t know any better and you’ll be spot on,” said Sander brashly. “I’d feel awfully convicted if I wasn’t honest with you. They say it’s a sin to lie in the presence of an angel, you know.”

By now they’d reached the bar; before they pushed up against it to catch the attention of the barkeep Robbe turned sideways, squared up, overwhelmed with gratitude for the fact that in current form his flush was muted and nondescript.

“That’s funny,” he said, low, “because I’m pretty sure it’s  _ also _ a sin to talk to an angel of chastity about carnal things, and that sure as fuck didn’t stop you when we were in the cave together.”

Sander smiled again, let his flooding eyes rove Robbe’s face; the nature of his interest was as stark as early open dawn.

“Have I offended you, oh innocent one?”

Robbe pursed his lips, amusement flitting across his face as he shook his dark head.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me innocent with no basis.”

“No basis?” Sander’s eyebrows hiked his forehead, mountaintop climb. “You’re an angel of chastity. If that’s not a solid foundation for a proper guess, nothing is.”

“You would be wise, demon,” said Robbe, raising his face to level his gaze with Sander’s own, “to remember that things here aren’t usually the way humans think they are.”

“Oh?” Sander sucked insouciantly at his lip ring, fascinated. “So am I wrong then?”

“I don’t know, are you?” Without looking away from Sander’s face, that broken dam of blood racing down his ashen cheeks, Robbe gestured towards the bar. “We came here so you could catch up. Go on.”

Sander exhaled a frustrated little laugh, rolled his eyes briefly skyward.

“You drive me fucking crazy,  _ engel _ .”

“Good,” said Robbe, smirking. “Someone’s got to keep you humble.”

“I’m not so convinced it’ll be you,” said Sander, reaching out to touch Robbe’s earlobe, gentle just above the piercing. “I mean, you  _ did _ come to Lower Earth without your Elder’s permission just to see me, so that’s not exactly the kind of thing that’s going to shrink my ego.”

Robbe was not breathing, all of his focus Saturn-ringed around Sander’s fingertips pressed to his skin. “You think I came here just to see you? That’s a bold, bold assumption, demon.”

“Surely by now you know that it’s not in my nature to be shy,” said Sander shrewdly. “Can’t afford to not say what you mean in my line of work. I like this, by the way, is it temporary?”

“The earring? No,” said Robbe. “It’s permanent. Who knows, maybe I was subconsciously inspired by you.”

“An angel inspired by a demon?” Sander’s eyes were flame. “Does that mean you’re corruptible?”

“Don’t make me pull out a Lucifer reference here, Driesen.”

“A Lucifer reference?”

“You know, _even angels fall_ , or whatever?” The intermittent strobing of the lights caught Robbe’s eyes, hollowing them to iridescent white. “Besides, you can’t corrupt something that’s already been corrupted.”

“You sweet, chaste thing,” said Sander, and his voice was  _ all  _ heat. “You have no idea the things I’m capable of.”

Robbe opened his mouth to reply, found he could muster nothing in response, swallowed. Sander, tasting his victory, smiled jubilantly and spoke again before Robbe could comment. 

“So you want another drink? What’s this, a Rosary?” He curved long beringed fingers around the body of Robbe’s glass, leaned down to sniff the contents. “It better be, that’s the only proper way to commemorate your first trip to the LE.”

“So I’ve been told,” said Robbe, regaining himself. “But no. I want to see you match me first. Otherwise you’ll have an unfair advantage, and  _ that _ wouldn’t be right.”

“That’s not possible,” said Sander, and he meant it wholeheartedly but he hadn’t intended to say so out loud, had no conscious intention of relinquishing the upper hand.

Robbe sensed the accidental mask slip and pounced.

“What do you mean? Why not?”

Sander hesitated, perused the genuine curiosity in Robbe’s eyes.  _ It’s a sin to lie in the presence of an angel _ , he’d said, but what he’d meant was  _ I don’t want you to think any worse of me than you already do _ . What he’d meant was  _ I want you to see who I really am _ . If he was truly going to let Robbe in, gain his trust, he knew that continuously showing his hand when directly questioned was one of the best ways to go about that precarious process. 

“Because you dazzle me,” he said softly, and his face was as open as Robbe had ever seen it. “I can’t have an unfair advantage over you, because it still blows my mind that you’ll even  _ speak  _ to me.”

He raised his hands to his head, puffed his cheeks, blew air out of his mouth as he mimed an explosion. Even through the absolute paralysis of his shock Robbe grinned. 

“Ugh,” he said, “please don’t make references to explosions right now. My last assignment involved averting Chernobyl part two. Literally.”

“Well,” said Sander, smiling, “you must have succeeded, because if you hadn’t, I’d know. They still talk about the original Chernobyl down here. The scary Fate, Atropos? She had a big hand in that.”

Robbe’s eyebrows bridged. “It wasn’t the work of a demon?”

“No,” said Sander, “but according to Senne, the incompetence of the Soviet government immediately after the disaster  _ was _ . Some of your kind had to step in to prevent further damage from occurring.”

“My kind?” The edges of Robbe’s mouth curled, teasing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a skinwalker, and we can’t do much about the affairs of demons.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” said Sander, laughing as he leaned in, lowered his voice. “It’s a good disguise, I’m much more convinced than I was when you were trying to pass yourself off as a fucking  _ vampire _ .” 

“Milan’s on some voodoo shit,” said Robbe. “We went to a curio shop to get ingredients for the spell and everything. He made me into the darkest possible version of myself.”

“It suits you,” said Sander, boldly. “The darkness.”

Robbe stepped forward just an inch so they were cliff-edge close, hairsbreadth close, perilously close.

“You like it, then?”

Sander was immobile, unblinking, breath lodged in his chest like a choking hazard. “Yeah. I do.”

“I figured,” said Robbe, and he ran his tongue insouciantly over his lower lip as his gaze dropped to the open plum circle of Sander’s mouth. “I don’t know how you can see through all that blood. Sander.”

He slammed a firm hand down on the bartop; at once, wraithlike, the barkeep arrived to attend to them. 

“What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“He’ll have a Rosary,” said Robbe boldly, without removing his aqueous glimmering gaze from Sander’s own. “A strong one, please.”

Sander’s eyes waxed gigantic, incredulous as he processed what Robbe had just said.

“If I didn’t know any better,” he said thickly, mimicking Robbe’s earlier words as the bartender swirled away to fulfill his request, “I’d say you were implying something.” 

“By ordering you a Rosary?” Robbe’s face was glass-smooth, epitomizing purity.

“By calling me out,” said Sander softly. “I told you why I bleed a lot sometimes. I know you were paying attention.”

When Robbe smiled there was no trace of his angelic nature anywhere within it; his face was sharp and alert and vulpine, predatory. Wise.

“I believe the term you used was, ah - _ excited _ .”

“Very good,” said Sander, smirking. “Star pupil. That’s being polite, though. What I really meant was  _ turned on _ .”

By now the bartender had returned with Sander’s drink; before he could even start to barter for payment Sander had downed it, smacked the glass back down on the bartop, wiped his mouth with the back of one smooth hand. Robbe was aware that their entire time together thus far that night had centered around the two of them stunning each other for pleasure, and it was working: his entire body felt like a bundle of concentrated nerves, that lovely sort of electric.

Sander was watching him with bare smug amusement. 

“There,” he said, “we’re even. Now we can both move forward. Two more of those, please, kind sir, and I’ll pay you in platinum faerie dust.”

“You got it, man,” said the bartender, and disappeared again. Robbe rolled his eyes, but his annoyance was farce.

“You’re really gonna play that card? Trying to woo me by buying bougie drinks with even  _ bougie-r _ forms of payment?”

“Jesus, no,” said Sander, grinning. “What do you take me for? I’m going to woo you by dancing with you. I was a stripper in my human life,  _ engel,  _ and a damn good one at that. You don’t stand a chance.”

And for maybe the fifth time in as many minutes Robbe found that he could not produce a single retort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took me a bit, lovelies. I've been through a bit of a rough patch in my personal life, but things are (hopefully) starting to straighten out again. I hope you enjoy :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Senne and Milan continue to be enablers, Senne has a secret, and Sander gets real with Robbe.

It took the barkeep — who re-appeared before them looking slightly peppier than he had earlier, probably due to Sander’s promise of platinum faerie dust — forcefully pressing a fresh drink into one of Robbe’s hands for him to rise at last from his heavy daze. 

“You were a —”

“ — stripper, yeah,” said Sander casually, as though he were discussing his mediocre profession as a barista, or a retail clerk. “Are you still stuck on that?”

“Are you really trying to give me  _ shit _ for being stuck on that?” Robbe’s eyes were impenetrable, the emotions within them shifting so constantly that Sander could not pin down a singular one. “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t be fucking bulldozed if I told you I’d been a stripper.”

“Oh, I’d absolutely be shocked,” said Sander, grinning wickedly. “Because you’re an angel of fucking chastity. But I, Robbe, am a demon of lust. That fact that I had a job like that should come as no surprise to you.” 

He licked around the rim of his glass, eyes hazy, fascinated as he watched Robbe’s expression. When Robbe sighed it was  _ long-suffering. _

“I wouldn’t say  _ surprise _ is the dominant emotion I’m feeling here.”

Sander’s left eyebrow rose, just marginally. “Oh no?”

“No,” said Robbe, and though Sander ached for him to go on, he didn’t elaborate. “Did you — I mean, did you like it?”

“When I was dancing,” said Sander, distant eyes to the side, clearly thinking his answer through. “Like, when I was onstage. Yeah, actually, I did. Not so much when I had to do one-on-ones with a client. But I had ways of numbing myself out to that, so it wasn’t always bad.”

Now Robbe’s eyes were hawk-sharp, far too aware for Sander’s comfort, but there was unmistakable concern scrawled all across his faultless face and it made the space over Sander’s heart go suddenly, softly warm. “You gonna go into detail about that?”

“What, right now? And ruin the mood? Fuck no,” said Sander easily. “Anyway, that was a long time ago. Becoming an immortal being really helps heal human trauma, especially when you’ve got a good Maker to help you through it all. And I have the best.”

Robbe was silent for a moment, studying him, unconvinced. Then, like a stage actor switching a mask, his face relaxed.

“Okay. So will you go into detail about that at another, future time?”

Sander nearly dropped his glass. 

“What, for real?” 

“Yeah,  _ for real _ ,” said Robbe, confused. “Of course,  _ for real _ . What? Why did you react like that?”

“Robbe,” said Sander, low, playing it up as he ducked down close once more, “do mine ears deceive me, or are you actually saying you want to see me again?”

Like a big cat Robbe chuffed, dropped his head back, lips parting as he laughed aloud. “Shut the fuck up, Driesen.”

“Oh no,” said Sander, beaming. He was attempting to be coy and sly and smug but his entire face was overwritten with joy and it made Robbe’s entire body feel golden. “I’m not letting this one go. Admit it. You want to see me again.”

“I’m admitting no such thing.”

“You will,” said Sander cheerfully. “Just like you’ll admit that you came to the LE to find me. You think you’re mysterious,  _ engel,  _ but you’re not. I see you.”

“You don’t think I’m mysterious?” Robbe leaned back, false-affronted. “That’s the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever heard. You were looking at my Shield like it was the fucking eighth wonder of the world.” 

“Your Shield is the ninth,” said Sander, and he ran the side of his forefinger light as a ghoul-touch down the ashen length of Robbe’s nose. “You’re the eighth.”

“Oh, am I.” Robbe was paralyzed, determined not to give away how much Sander was affecting him. “How many times have you used that line before, Casanova?”

“Line? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sander was grinning. “You’re definitely not the type to fall for flattery, so I’d be wasting my time kissing your ass. But sometimes I just can’t stop myself from telling the  _ whole  _ truth. Keeps you on your toes, you know?”

Steady, outwardly unfazed, Robbe looked between Sander’s eyes, constantly bulldozed by the amount of blood he was producing. “So tell me the truth.”

“That’s all I’ve done since I met you,” said Sander, and the sincerity in his voice was undeniable. “Maybe I deal in the sins of the flesh, but I’m no liar.”

A slow moment, in which Robbe’s gaze fell to Sander’s tongue where it lapped lazily at the metal in his lip, dripped past. Then,

“No,” he said, soft. “No, I don’t think you are. You surprise me, Sander.”

“I do?” Sander’s eyebrows quirked, just marginally. “I like it when you say my name.”

Robbe’s eyes were fire, mischief. “I haven’t forgotten the fact that I can use it to command you.”

“You can,” said Sander, habitually confident even as through all that cerise blood his pupils swelled in mild shock. “Under most circumstances.”

“ _ Most  _ circumstances? Not all?”

“Who knows? I haven’t had the opportunity to test that theory.” 

“It’s a shame you never will,” said Robbe, still with that amusement hovering at the edges of his lips, the tiny smile lines around his eyes.

“I’ve told you before,” said Sander, completely unconcerned, “I don’t think in absolutes. And I’m going to have to scrub that word from your vocabulary, it’s getting  _ really  _ offensive at this point.”

“What word?”

Sander ducked in; automatically Robbe angled his head slightly to the side so Sander could speak into his ear. Touch wasn’t necessary; merely the suggestive proximity, the feathersilk air of Sander’s breath puffing into the shell of Robbe’s ear, was enough to conjure immediate chill through every bit of him.

“ _ Never _ .”

Within Robbe’s bloodstream the heavy repetitive bassline of the music thudded, active volcano roar below his shivery skin. He leaned up, eyes downturned, careful not to press the side of his face into Sander’s own as he parted his lips to speak.

“I didn’t think anything could offend a demon.”

When Sander smiled it was full of the wicked, merciless beauty that Robbe was beginning to associate with him; up close the effect was lethal.

“Demons have feelings like any other being. They’re just a little more difficult to hurt.”

The noise level of the club was not so overwhelming that they would not have been able to hear each other perfectly well standing a normal distance apart, but neither moved away, remaining near enough to activate that familiar thunderstorm magnetism. Robbe’s nerve endings felt as though they’d been electrified and just for something to do he took a sip of his drink before he spoke again.

“Seems like nothing bothers you.”

Sander laughed aloud. “Depends on your definition of the word  _ bother _ .”

Robbe pulled back so he could look Sander directly in the eye. 

“Now who’s implying something?”

Sander winked; the movement drew attention and when Robbe peered closer he could see that Sander’s top lashes were saturated with slick wet crimson. “I imply shit constantly with you. Even if I can’t come right out and say it to your face, it would drive me insane not to at least  _ hint _ at what I’m thinking about.”

Valiantly Robbe tried not to laugh; he succeeded in checking himself, but he could not suppress the little exhalation of amusement that escaped through his nostrils. Sander tilted his gleaming white head, puzzled. 

“What?”

“You are  _ literally _ an overgrown teenager,” said Robbe, eyes to the ceiling, dramatic in his exasperation. “Always with the innuendos.”

“One day,” said Sander loudly, “you’ll get it through your brain that it’s  _ in my DNA  _ to be overly sexual. I’m programmed this way. I can’t help it.”

“That’s funny,” said Robbe, “because even though  _ I’m  _ an angel of chastity, it’s  _ not _ in my DNA to be a fucking virgin. Weird, huh?”

“You keep saying that,” said Sander, clicking his tongue, “but I still don’t believe you.”

“Good thing I don’t have to prove shit to you, then.”

“No, you don’t,” said Sander agreeably, before he put his mouth to Robbe’s ear again; this time his lips brushed skin and the speed at which liquid heat gathered in Robbe’s lower stomach nearly caused him to gasp aloud. “But you keep bringing it up, so I’m starting to think you kind of  _ want _ to prove shit to me.”

“You’re the one bringing it up, demon.”

“Me?” Sander’s eyes went wide; he was trying for innocence, but there was no saccharine childlike sweetness to be found within all that thirst-driven blood, and Robbe called him on it. 

“Don’t  _ even  _ give me that fucking face. Your favorite thing to do is tease me about how pure you think I am.”

“ _ One _ of my favorite things,” corrected Sander, grinning. “I do it because it gets to you, and you’re beautiful when you blush. It’s not as fun right now, though, I can’t even tell you’re embarrassed without that pretty golden glow to show me.”

Robbe bit his lip, charmed against his will. “Shut up.”

“I will not,” said Sander, all cheek. “Honestly, Robbe, it’s not fair. I’m over here hemorrhaging for the entire underworld to see, and you? You’re cool as a cucumber.”

“Lucky for you, no one else knows what it means when you’re bleeding out,” said Robbe brightly, and he grinned. “Except Senne and Jens. And maybe Milan, I guess, since he seems to know fucking everything.”

For perhaps the first time that night Sander looked genuinely shocked. “Your Maker knows what it means?”

Robbe hadn’t meant to say it; Sander would have no way of understanding how Jens could be privy to such an intimate fact about him, as he was still unaware that Robbe’s Elder could read minds. “Yeah. No idea how.”

“Well  _ that’s _ mortifying,” said Sander, with astonishing calm. “How am I supposed to prove to him that I have noble intentions with you now? I can’t do anything to stop it or hide it at all, unless I’ve been spelled.”

Robbe laughed. “Pretty sure no one thinks you have noble intentions with me.”

“Well,” said Sander, voice a rasp as he reached over to pluck at the chain around Robbe’s neck. His fingertips on Robbe’s skin were warm, fleeting. “They’re not  _ all _ noble.”

It took more willpower than Robbe knew he possessed not to shut his eyes; feigning nonchalance in the face of something as bold as  _ that  _ was akin to throwing out an Enforcement around his Shield. 

“Obviously,” he said, and despite his gargantuan effort the stable cadence of his voice hitched, rocky. “Because you basically told me you were going to try to seduce me by stripping for me.”

“By stripping for you? God no, get your mind out of the gutter,” said Sander, smirking. “I was just planning to dance with you. I mean, unless you  _ want  _ me to strip for you, but in that case I think we’ll have to find a private room. I don’t put on a show for just anyone, you know.”

For half a blasphemous moment Robbe’s mind went to the most inappropriate of places, Sander with his drip-bloody eyes locked to Robbe’s own as he moved slow and lithe before him, all that starry tattoo-laced skin exposed. The two of them more alone than they had been even in the cave at Lake Lerna, nothing between them but willpower and air, the taboo of their respective statuses. So tangible, so colorful was the scene in his mind that Robbe went hot all over and at last the truth of him was laid bare: the lapse in self-control caused his placid expression to waver, and Sander saw interest crack across his face like a stark jag of lightning. 

“Oh,” he said, and somehow his voice was even deeper, rustier than it had been before. “Maybe you  _ do  _ want that.”

Robbe looked away; he’d managed to straighten his face into nonchalance again, but the way he averted his guilty gaze was all the confirmation Sander needed. “What are you talking about?”

“Isn’t that, like,” breathed Sander, ignoring the question, and now his heartbeat was  _ flying _ for the idea that Robbe - lovely, glorious, ethereal angel Robbe - could possibly, possibly be interested in him as well, “a huge no-no? For you to think about someone like that?”

“Think about someone like what?” Robbe tossed half his drink back in one go, focused on the fiery ache that scraped down his insides, but he knew he’d been caught out and even if the gemlike incandescence that accompanied his angelic flush was not present his face was  _ burning _ .

“Now,  _ engel _ ,” said Sander, and his voice was gentle and scolding at once. “I’ve been honest with you, so it’s only fair that you should be honest with me.”

Robbe sighed.

“Being an angel of chastity,” he said, still looking determinedly away from Sander’s face, “does not necessarily make you a chaste being.”

Each time Sander had jested with him about his purity Robbe had essentially repeated the same sentiment, but this was the first time Sander had even half believed him.

“That makes sense,” he said. “I was being an ass before, when I said it was in my DNA to be overly sexual. I’m a demon of lust because that was my most repeated human sin, and because I’m good at that sort of thing. But I’m not — I’m not like that now. I don’t just sleep with anything that moves.”

Robbe’s eyes flew back to Sander’s face and his expression was so troubled Sander was touched. Long ago as a method of self-preservation he had ceased to care what others thought of him, but with Robbe it was not so easy to remain aloof; here, in the presence of divinity, he had something to prove.

Robbe said, with clear emphasis,

“I never thought you did, Sander.”

This time when Sander grinned it was nothing but joy and the effect brought a rare kind of innocence to his face; Robbe mirrored him and for a moment they simply stood smiling rather idiotically at one another before Sander cleared his throat.

“Oh. Well, okay then.”

“It’ll probably surprise you to know this,” said Robbe, “but it’s kind of against our code of conduct to pass judgment upon other beings.”

“That does surprise me, given the fact that angels are supposed to look down on us,” said Sander, but he winked again.

“Sure,” said Robbe, teasing. “Because the UA is literally above Lower Earth, so we don’t really have a choice.”

“Well, well, well,” said Sander. “Didn’t  _ you  _ come to play.”

“I did, actually. I came to play cards with wendigos.”

“You’re a terrible angel,” drawled Sander. “Lying is a sin, and you keep lying to me.”

“Half-truths aren’t lies.”

“Is that what you tell yourself, to avoid going to confession?”

Robbe snorted. “We’re not in Catholic school.”

“My apologies,” said Sander, faux-formal. “I spent many a year getting chastised by women called  _ sister  _ for not tucking my shirt in or fucking up the knot in my tie or drawing all over my desk when I was supposed to be memorizing Psalm 186, or whatever. Sometimes I still have war flashbacks.”

“I can relate. Only I can’t draw, so I got yelled at for daydreaming in class instead,” said Robbe, and he smiled.

“What did you daydream about?”

“Everything. Mostly being outside, what I would do when I was done with school for the day. I hated being stuck indoors.”

“And what do you daydream about now?”

With a single wise gaze Robbe pinned Sander in place; he knew the answer the demon sought and he was not about to give it to him, even if part of it was rooted in truth.

“I exist in paradise,” he said, and shrugged one elegant shoulder. “There’s not much left to be desired.”

*

While Robbe and Sander were busy occupying a universe entirely of their own, Milan and Senne had migrated to stand shoulder to shoulder against the back wall, observing the mill of formless darkness before them. They’d taken it upon themselves to procure a round of drinks on their own — “I don’t think they’ll be back anytime soon, if you want something within the next aeon we’d better go to the front bar,” Senne had announced after several moments of waiting, and he hadn’t needed to tell Milan twice — and now in placid silence sipped wholly unbothered from their individual goblets. Milan, sensing some unspoken sentiment in the air after that earlier ominous  _ you know why _ , was waiting for Senne to voice his heart aloud, but when he spoke it was not entirely what the sylph-elf had been expecting. 

“I don’t know if he’s ready, Mil.”

“Ready for…”

“This. Whatever’s going on with Jens’s Fledgling.” Senne was moody now, voice clipped as he struggled to articulate. “He can’t take being hurt again, and I won’t let anything fucking touch him. It’s only been five human years and he went through the traumatic equivalent of about three centuries.”

“He did,” said Milan agreeably. “But he had you to help him cope with the aftermath, and that’s more important than you know.”

“There’s only so much I can do.”

“You think so?” Milan was watching him. “I can smell Earth on you. What were you two doing, before you came here?”

Senne paused, set his mouth.

“We went to Belgium,” he said gruffly.

“Ah,” said Milan, knowing. “To see his father. And what about afterward?”

“I took him to an art exhibit,” said Senne. “One of his favorite painters. They were doing some special event in Paris and I thought it would make him happy. I still don’t know why he gives a fuck about that piece of shit.”

“Because he has a good heart,” said Milan simply, “and because you do, too, you take him back to Antwerp when he asks, even though you loathe every  _ minute  _ of it.”

“He needs it to heal.”

“For now. Eventually he won’t.”

“I know. But I don’t think he’ll be done processing for a while.” Senne was deadeyed, flat. “He still has a hard time expressing emotion, even with me.”

“Huh,” said Milan, and he grinned like a snake. “Reminds me of you when you were just a baby Fledgling. You were the dictionary definition of angst.”

Senne looked sideways at him, gave a grim chuckle in spite of himself. “Jesus. I forget how ancient you are sometimes.”

“Honey, as long as I don’t look a day over twenty, I’m perfectly content to keep going just like this.”

“Twenty’s pushing it.” Senne took a long drink to conceal his mirth, came up cherry-stained and guilty. “Maybe add five or six years.”

Milan smacked him, insulted. “Do you even know how fucked you’d be if I hexed you?”

“I’d probably cease to exist.”

“You’re damn right, so I don’t know why you’re acting all nonchalant about it.” 

“Because you love me and you know I’m joking, and you’re hot and gorgeous and forever young, and any being would be beyond lucky to have you?”

“Ah, flattery,” said Milan, sighing in contentment, “it’ll get you everywhere with me. All right, I won’t curse you into oblivion. You know Jens’s Fledgling has a reputation already, right?”

“I’ve heard his name,” said Senne, still reeling from the hasty change of topic. “I remembered him because he’s connected to Stoffels, and because his popularity reminds me of Sander. He gets talked about, too, because of his eyes.”

“ _ And _ because of his power,” added Milan meaningfully. “Do you know how rare it is for an angel to have a Shield like that, especially one so young as him? He has that ability because he was good at hiding on Earth, and it’s in his nature to be a protector. He keeps the things that he loves safe, Senne, even if he gets hurt in the process he will not let them come to harm. Do you know how he died?”

Interested against his will, Senne shook his head. 

“He pushed someone out of the way of a car. Someone that he didn’t even know. They survived, but he was crushed.” Milan’s face was mournful, genuine. “He’s good, and he’s selfless. He won’t hurt your boy. Actually, Jens is terrified that Sander will destroy  _ him _ .”

“Because angels think demons of lust are — what is it the humans say now?  _ Fuckmen _ ?”

Delighted, Milan laughed aloud. “ _ Fuckboys. _ Close. And it’s a valid concern, you know.”

“Yeah, well.” Senne scowled, licked across his fangs. “Sander isn’t like that.”

“It’s not me you have to convince, Senne,” said Milan, and he nodded his head in the direction of the melee. “I can see how he looks at Robbe from here.”

For amidst the faceless myriad of beings on the dance floor both subjects of their conversation had suddenly rematerialized. 

“I should really put a stop to this before it goes any further,” said Senne idly, but he made no move to do so.

“Then why don’t you? Besides the obvious reason?” Milan was light, unconcerned; for everything that he understood about the situation it could have been a rhetorical question but Senne answered him anyway.

“Remember what I told you, about what happened at the Hydra Milking?”

“How Robbe protected Sander, you mean.”

“Exactly.”

“I remember.”

“That thing you just said,” said Senne slowly, “the bit about Robbe being selfless and good. I already knew he was, because of what he did for Sander.”

In the unstable shift of strobing silvery lights Milan’s eyes were chromatic, omniscient.

“So that’s why you’re not stopping them.”

“That’s why I’m not stopping them.” 

“Senne de Smet,” said Milan in unadulterated delight, “I believe you’re becoming a bit of a softie in your old age.”

“Watch who you’re calling old, Methuselah, we’ve been over this,” said Senne, but there was definite amusement flitting around the frames of his eyes. “And I wouldn’t go  _ that _ far. I’m the one who warned Driesen that all roads lead to pain here.”

The sylph-elf looked at him full-on then, genuinely surprised. “Why? You don’t believe that, surely?”

“Milan.” Senne cut his eyes sideways,  _ you’ve got to be kidding me.  _ “Think about what you just said.”

“Oh, honey, please,” said Milan, brushing him off. “You can _ not  _ be equating your mess to this perfectly innocent little flirtation. You’re not even close to the end of your road with that and you know it. In fact, one could argue that it doesn’t technically  _ have _ an end, because we are infinite beings. Give it time.”

“Couple hundred more human years should do the trick, huh,” said Senne, and his voice was a scowl, gravel, black tar. Acidic.

“Maybe,” said Milan cheerfully. “You might be surprised. Now come on, let’s dance. We’re here, we have nothing else to do but twiddle our thumbs and gossip while we wait for them, we might as well have fun.”

“Ugh.” Senne tipped his face forward so he could stare into his glass, pressed his rose-dotted lips together. “I don’t know.”

“Come  _ oooon,  _ Senne. You could use it, lighten you up a little bit. Stress relief.”

Senne made a face. “I don’t think so.”

“No? That’s too bad.” Milan tipped Senne’s sharp chin up, forced eye contact, played his hand: when he wanted something, all he had to do was summon his Glamour, and he was not above doing so. By nature he was a creature of Neutral origin, so the massive power in his possession could just as easily be used for wickedness as for good. “Because I do think so.”

“ _ Hendrickx. _ ” Helplessly Senne pushed off the wall, groaned. “This is  _ against the code _ .”

“Oh, it’s  _ against the code _ , says the demon of wrath,” said Milan, and he winked. “Let’s go. We’ll stay out of their sight and you can forget they’re even here. Trust me.”

So Senne, having very little choice in the matter, let himself be dragged by the hand through the crowd, in quite the opposite direction of his Fledgling. In his stomach a little nudge of worry burgeoned, but as it turned out his concern was quite baseless, because Sander was as content as he had ever been. By now he had forgotten about everything else in the universe except the fact that he had somehow wound up standing in front of his elusive  _ engel  _ on a dance floor in Lower Earth, and what was more, Robbe seemed  _ happy  _ about it.

“You really want to dance with me,” said Sander doubtfully. He was still not entirely certain that this wasn’t some sort of hallucination, perhaps a side effect of all the spellwork Noor had done on him earlier, and it was ruining his veneer of kept-together confidence but he couldn’t help himself from thinking it. Everything that was happening seemed like a dream state, acid trip, well-crafted illusion.

Robbe dropped his faux-dark head back and laughed. 

“You’re so strange, demon.”

His laugh was communicable; without really knowing why, Sander smiled too.

“You think so?”

“Well, yeah. One minute you’re like…” Robbe puffed his chest, quirked one saucy eyebrow in a solid imitation of Sander. “...talking about how you don’t put on a show for just anyone, and then the next you’re asking me stuff like  _ do you really want to dance with me _ . It’s very contradictory.”

The grin that surged across Sander’s pale mouth was gigantic, pure; his piercing shone gemlike, caught like a stray moonbeam in the intermittent light. “Have to keep you guessing. I don’t want you to get bored.”

“Oh, is that it.”

“That’s it,” said Sander, but he reached up to swipe at the stream coursing from his eyes all the same. Though it never impeded him or blocked his vision, when the blood was this thick it was impossible for him not to notice, and the instinct to wipe at his face was insurmountable.

Robbe eyed him with shoddily-concealed satisfaction; Sander wanted to be annoyed, but he was thrilled for the fact that Robbe understood  _ exactly _ the effect he was having.

“Will you bleed on me when we dance?”

“Maybe,” said Sander, “but it’ll evaporate fast. If it lands on your skin it stays around a bit longer.” 

“How do you know that?”

“Because it drips on Senne all the time and it’s there long enough for him to lick it off,” said Sander, unconcerned. “I should seriously start charging him. I’m like his infinite soda machine or something.”

“Except instead of Mountain Dew it’s, you know,  _ blood _ ,” said Robbe, and he smirked. “Do you ever let him drink from you? Like fangs-in-the-neck, Dracula style?”

Sander hesitated; it was minuscule, but every iota of Robbe’s attention was on him and he caught it. He was wondering if Sander had finally found something about which to be dishonest when the demon finally answered him.

“Yeah,” he said slowly, “sometimes I do.”

“How does  _ that  _ feel?”

Sander shrugged, laughed; the sound was light but the weight of it held more mass. “Um. Different. But you know how when you’re really exhausted, being close to your Maker helps you recharge quickly? It’s like that with my blood for Senne. When he drinks from me he feels satisfied in like a third of the time it would normally take him to replenish.”

“Probably because your blood was literally made from him,” said Robbe, processing, his thoughts diverging in a hundred different directions. “What does he normally drink?”

“Mostly animals,” said Sander. “He’s kind of a cliche, it all pretty much works like you’d think it would in the vampire world. For moral reasons he doesn’t like to drink from humans unless they’re already going to die, and there are enough creatures here in the Afterlife that are willing to let him drain them nearly dry that he doesn’t need to. The whole  _ vampire kink _ thing stands up in every culture.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you have common sense,” said Sander, tilting his white head, “and you’re observant. But you never answered my question.”

Robbe grinned, hedging. He knew what was being asked of him but he liked to play as much as Sander did and it was easier and easier to make the demon squirm. “I don’t believe you phrased it as a question.”

“Probably because I already know the answer,” said Sander, and there again was that smooth cockiness that Robbe loved to hate, hated to love. When Sander reached over to curl a cautious hand around Robbe’s hip he froze, sucked in a low, sharp, involuntary breath.

“Do you.”

“That’s not a question, either,” said Sander, voice a murmur as he edged closer, closer, until they were so near to one another Robbe had to raise his chin to make eye contact. Hesitantly Sander’s hand climbed to the side of his ribcage, around to his back; the air in the club was suddenly compressed, overheated, heavy as the pressure before a thunderstorm.

“It didn’t need to be,” whispered Robbe, and then Sander started to move.

He was as exquisite as Robbe had thought he’d be, more so. Always a clumsy dancer, Robbe had worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep up, but part of Sander’s skill lay within his ability to guide where his dance partner was unsure and he did so with such deftness that Robbe’s uncertainty was immediately put to ease. In his head the music was low and deep, all heartbeat bass and yowling spat-out vocals in some choppy language Robbe guessed was Russian or Ukrainian, and if he was a proper angel he probably would have been repulsed by it all but instead he was snake-charmed, intoxicated, euphoric. He had done a number of decidedly non-holy things over the past several human days and he reasoned that it was probably time he started coming to terms with the fact that he was no proper angel. The thought was still idling in his mind when Sander, forcing wicked eye contact, rolled his hips deliberately against Robbe’s own. 

Wrong-footed, instantly so aroused he was reeling, Robbe gritted his teeth. 

“ _ Demon.” _

“ _ Engel _ .” Sander was taunting him; Robbe hated how much he wanted all of that and more. 

“That’s exactly what I am,” hissed Robbe, “which, need I remind you, means you’re supposed to  _ leave room for Jesus _ .”

“You know, I would,” said Sander, leaning in, his fingers splayed low over Robbe’s back playing dangerously with the hem of his t-shirt. “I really, really would. But you don’t seem to hate it.”

Boldly he slid his forefinger up so it rested on Robbe’s skin, flush with the base of his spine, and that solitary point of contact was enough to be absolutely debilitating. When he spoke again it was in shuddering Dutch, hissed into the shell of Robbe’s ear, breath all heat and want.

“You don’t seem to hate it at all.”

With his huge pale hands he took Robbe’s waist, pressed against him in earnest, establishing a slow murderous grind with his hips. There was no room to mistake his meaning and Robbe hissed aloud, weak, ashamed for how eagerly he rocked up into the motion of Sander’s pelvis, seeking friction, more, more,  _ more _ .

“I can’t stand you,” he said just below his breath. It was the most transparent lie he’d ever told.

“And yet here you are,” said Sander without missing a beat, mouth open over Robbe’s earlobe, and Robbe was just thinking how warm his breath was when suddenly there was wetness on his skin, sharp cerise against ash. Blood.

“You’re dripping,” he said dumbly before he could stop himself, before he could think how it sounded.

The laugh Sander choked out was a surprised, uneven husk in his throat.

“All for you.”

“That much I know,” said Robbe, recovering, and Sander grinned. With a great deal of cheeky satisfaction he said, 

“Yeah, you do. But now  _ I _ know we’re on the same page.”

Robbe was about to conjure a retort, some fiery spitting sass refuting this audacious (and entirely true) claim, when Sander took his hand and twirled him under one long arm like a ballroom dancer. The move was unexpected, enough to surprise him into silence, and when Sander circled him around again he was smiling. 

“There,” he said. “Is that how you want to dance? That was a really smooth turn, actually, I’m impressed.”

Robbe couldn’t stop the answering grin that unfurled across his face.

“Thanks. I’m not usually the one doing the actual twirling.”

“No?”

“No. I didn’t do much dancing at all when I was alive,” said Robbe. “I was never very good at it.”

“You’re doing just fine for me,” said Sander.

There was some kind of lilting cadence in his voice, a hot certain layer of deeper meaning that made Robbe pull slightly back to better examine Sander’s face. The way he’d said it was almost like a praise, the familiarity of the words on his tongue unmissable, and as he scrutinized him Robbe’s eyes went narrow with focus.

“What else did you do on Earth? Besides strip?”

Half of Sander’s mouth curved up, swordblade. 

“I told you if we go into detail about that right now it’ll ruin the mood.”

“Then don’t go into detail about it,” said Robbe. “Answer one question and I’ll shut up about it. Swear.”

“I already know your question, though,” said Sander. “You want me to tell you what else I did on Earth.”

It was Robbe’s turn to show that wicked smirk. On him it was vulpine, tricky in a subtle sort of way, and Sander wanted to lick under his upper lip and taste his deviance.

“I mean, yeah,” said Robbe. “Eventually. But you said not now, so that’s not what I was going to ask.”

Without either of them realizing what they were doing they’d come to a sort of middle ground: Sander’s arms roped lazily around Robbe’s low waist, Robbe’s inner elbows thrown over Sander’s shoulders, front to front as they rocked easily back and forth in their own time. It was effortless, natural, and Sander had a heavy flash of middle-school nostalgia: they were  _ slow-dancing _ .

“All right,” he said. “Ask me, then.”

“Were you a dom?”

Sander was so astounded he completely stopped moving; unprepared, Robbe lost his balance slightly and grabbed for Sander’s waist to right himself. 

“Was I a  _ dom _ ?”

“Didn’t think I stuttered,” said Robbe, quirking his eyebrows, and suddenly he was the kind of confident that made Sander’s stomach burst into flames. It was he who had to take extra caution not to stumble over his own words when he replied.

“ _ Engel _ , do you even know what that is?”

“Whips, chains,  _ thank you sir I’ll have another _ ,” said Robbe, bored. “To start with. So were you? You swore you’d tell me.”

“I absolutely did no such thing.” Sander was wrecked, hoarse, bombarded with involuntary cinema-quality images of Robbe blindfolded on his knees. Begging.

“By letting me ask my question, you entered a binding contract,” said Robbe, wide-eyed tipping his head up, and it was all Sander could do not to curl his fingers around the nape of his neck, kiss him until they were both boneless for it. “No take-backs, sorry.”

Sander groaned low and it came from his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re going to play innocent now.”

“What do you mean? I’m just living up to the stereotype you pinned on me,” said Robbe. “It’s your own fault for assuming, isn’t it, Sander?”

He was blinking like he was the purest creature in existence but his eyes were black with amused iniquity and Sander felt like he was going to combust.  _ You can use my name to command me,  _ he’d said, and it had never been truer than it was in that moment. Denying Robbe what he wanted when he looked Sander in the eye and named him aloud would be more or less impossible. 

“I was not a dom,” he said, swallowing as he endeavored to regain his composure. “Not all the time. But some of my clients specifically requested me to dom  _ for _ them, so I guess you could say it was part of the job description.” 

Robbe’s face remained impressively cabalistic, polite interest in his eyes, but Sander thought he knew him better than that by now and the confirmation came when Robbe asked his next question. 

“And did you like that?”

“Nice try,” said Sander, skating a cautious fingertip up the length of Robbe’s spine to twirl around the chain of his necklace, “but that wasn’t part of the deal. One question, you said, and then you swore you’d shut up. You’re up to two.”

Immediately Robbe’s face fell into the sweetest of pouts; the effect was so staggering Sander found his resolve dissipating and bit at his lip ring to bring his feet back to solid ground. 

“Are you seriously this much of a stickler for rules?”

“Give me a break,” said Sander, chuckling. “I thought you’d be encouraging me to stick to the rules, Oh Holy One.”

“Sander,” said Robbe loudly, “think about everything I’ve done tonight and re-evaluate that assumption.”

“Are you trying to tell me that an angel disguising himself as a skinwalker to get into Lower Earth is frowned upon or something?”

Robbe grinned. “Shocking, I know.”

“I thought that was an everyday thing for you guys,” said Sander with as much solemnity as he could maintain. He felt light, bubbly, tensionless, alien sensations that he could not remember when last he’d experienced before Robbe, and it was druglike. Since he’d been Turned, Senne had brought him a great deal of happiness, as had the daily adventures that came with existing in the afterlife as an Unholy. But there was a significant difference between that kind of contented joy and the gentle emotion that began in his core and flowed steadily throughout his entire body when Robbe was near.

“Wouldn’t that be nice for you,” said Robbe coyly, tilting his head up, subtle.

“About as nice as it would be for you,” said Sander without even blinking.

Robbe’s eyes trailed slow down to Sander’s mouth, settled on his lip ring. 

“Not bad, then.”

They were too close for secret-keeping; when Robbe moved at all Sander could feel him, how hard he was. It was gratifying to know for sure that he wasn’t the only one who was extremely aroused but the more time they spent obviously grinding against each other the more he struggled: it wasn’t enough just to  _ know _ , he wanted to get on with the proceedings of mutual attraction. He was used to taking and being taken the second that desire arose and even though he’d known Robbe for less than a human week things were going far more slowly than he was accustomed to when it came to anything romantic or sexual. That mirror-clear image of Robbe kneeling blindfolded with a ragged plea on his tongue was at the forefront of Sander’s mind and he wanted to get him alone, lick down the ridges of his abdomen, see how his skin shimmered up close. He also understood that he could do none of these things. If he wanted Robbe to continue to let his guard down he knew he would have to do work and he was ready for it, eager, prepared to utilize the fact that he quite literally had all the time in the world. 

But simply knowing that he wasn’t allowed to touch Robbe like he wanted to couldn’t keep the needy hunger from blaring through his open expression, and he knew Robbe was reading him like a headline when his pupils went huge and black in response.

“I’m afraid to ask what you’re thinking about,” he said, and his voice was hoarse, trembly. 

“You shouldn’t be afraid,” said Sander smoothly, “but I’m not going to tell you, because I don’t think you can handle it.”

“Stop patronizing me, Driesen,” said Robbe. “You’re a demon of lust who’s an ex-stripper and a dom. I know what I’m dealing with here.”

“I don’t think you do.”

“I know a lot of shit happened to you on Earth,” said Robbe, soft. “A lot of bad shit.”

Sander froze.

“Who told you that?”

“I think I kind of guessed,” said Robbe, “but Milan confirmed that your human existence wasn’t the best. He didn’t go into detail about it, though.”

“Thank Lucifer,” said Sander, knife edge to his voice. “You don’t need to hear about my shitty life.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want you to know,” said Sander, habitually dropping his gaze, run through suddenly with shame. “It’ll make you think less of me.”

“No, it won’t,” said Robbe, puzzled. “I don’t care what you did in the past. I mean, it won’t change my opinion of you, if that’s what you think. It might help me understand you better.”

He was so earnest Sander’s heart nearly shattered, ceramic. For all Robbe’s faux-haughty, unbothered exterior, he was pure and sweet and lovely and no part of Sander felt deserving in the slightest.

“Do you  _ want _ to understand me better, Robbe the angel?”

They’d stopped moving entirely now, still holding loosely on to one another, tentative. Robbe sighed. 

“I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “Jens told me to watch out for you. Said you’d use your  _ demon of lust _ charms on me. But even after that...yeah, Sander. I do.”

“Fucking high angels,” said Sander, and his laugh was all acidity. “Of course he did. I’m no good for you, pure one.”

“I told you, you can’t corrupt me.”

At last Sander looked back at him, found his gaze, and he was all truth.

“Will you trust me more? If you know what happened to me?”

Robbe searched his face. “I think so. But I already trust you.”

“Yeah?” Sander’s crimson eyes went soft. “Why?”

Robbe snickered. 

“Because I know how much you’ve wanted to throw me up against a wall all night, and until about fifteen minutes ago you’d barely even touched me.”

The mood between them was shifting so rapidly as to be dizzying; they went from banter to flirtation to sudden heavy angst, vulnerability back to that palpable want and Sander was crazy from it. 

“Of course I haven’t,” he said cautiously. “I feel like I already get away with a lot with you. I know I’m forward as fuck, but I don’t want to disrespect you, or anything.”

Robbe smiled.

“One time you told me that I don’t talk to you like angels talk to demons,” he said. “And I think you don’t talk like I imagined a demon of lust would talk.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“It’s good,” said Robbe, “mostly.”

Sander’s eyebrows curved up. “ _ Mostly _ ?”

“Well, yeah,” said Robbe. “It’s good that you respect me. But I’m also kind of interested to see what you can do.”

The flow of blood from Sander’s eyes, which had reduced to a leisurely drip during his moment of chagrin, began once more to flood his face like a broken dam.

“I can show you,” he said croakily, “if you want.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said Robbe, but he was smirking, and Sander spoke again before he could overthink it.

“If you’re in disguise,” he said, “does that mean that for all intents and purposes you’re not technically an angel right now?” 

“Iiiiiii don’t know,” said Robbe, frowning, quizzical. “Depends on what you’re really asking me.”

“Angels aren’t supposed to kiss demons, because it’s against the holy handbook or whatever,” said Sander. “But no such rule applies to skinwalkers.”

Robbe’s eyes waxed massive in comprehension.

“I didn’t know,” he said, “at first. Why I wanted to come find you so badly. I think it’s because somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted to know if you were all talk, or if you were serious.”

“Serious about what?”

“Flirting with me,” said Robbe boldly, electric, thrilling in that unmatched power of control. “Since demons of lust can charm anything that moves, and all.”

Faintly, through his shuddering elation, Sander was amused. “And what’s the verdict?”

Robbe shook his head, tiny wraith of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “Too soon to tell.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Sander, and it was the truth. “I don’t even know how to do it properly anymore.”

“Do what properly?”

“Um,” said Sander, flushing vividly. “Pursue someone? Court them? I’m used to, uh. Jumping right in.”

With a straight face Robbe said, “So you’re saying you fuck on the first date.”

Sander choked; Robbe, knowing he hadn’t expected it, pulled an infuriatingly smug grin. When Sander recovered he said,

“I’m saying there were no dates.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there were places and times to meet and fuck, and that’s it.”

“Oh,” said Robbe, flattened, unsure where to even begin to continue. Sander saved him the trouble.

“So you’re right,” he said, reaching between them to play with Robbe’s pendant, quiet. “To not be sure, I mean, because I’m a disaster when it comes to this stuff. And I can rhapsodize all night about how unbelievably beautiful you are, and how much my fucking brain stops working when I see you, and how when I’m with you even when you’re being all ‘ _ don’t be so insolent, demon’,  _ you make me feel like I have a bunch of helium balloons in my chest. But if I just tell you those things, it’s not enough, because it’s a living example of actions being louder than words.”

He paused with his fingertips pressed to Robbe’s collarbone; Robbe was enchanted watching him, breath held in his throat, too warm everywhere. When Sander met his eyes he flashed an uncertain smile and it felt like the most honest version of himself he’d ever been for Robbe, no cocksure swaggering veneer, only his cracked-wide heart. Breakable.

“You deserve actions. And I don’t really know how to do that. But I’m gonna figure it out and get back to you when I do.”

For a moment Robbe was bereft of the ability to create sentences in any of his known languages. Sander’s rings were cold against his skin, his eyes giant and mildly apprehensive, and it was that uncertainty that finally forced the cogs in Robbe’s brain to begin working again.

“Even when I’m being all ‘ _ don’t be so insolent, demon’ _ , huh?”

Sander cracked a grin and it felt like a rush of relief.

“Sometimes  _ especially _ when you’re like that.”

“Well,” said Robbe, reaching up to take Sander’s hand from his necklace, run his fingertips along the backs of Sander’s ashen knuckles, “I personally don’t think you’re doing too bad of a job with the whole pursuing thing.”

“Even though it was you who came after me,” said Sander teasingly, and Robbe smacked his arm.

“What did we just talk about? Don’t be so fucking insolent, demon,” he said mockingly, and Sander laughed out loud. 

“Jesus. Be still my heart.”

“Do you even have one?”

“I don’t know, honestly. I didn’t  _ before _ I became a demon,” said Sander, and he was about to continue when for a swift second Robbe touched his face, effectively quieting him.

“You’re not a disaster.”

The lump in Sander’s throat made it difficult for him to swallow; he was grateful for his bloody tears, that they masked his real tears until he actually started to sob. He wanted to explain, go into detail, but he couldn’t, not then. 

“Thank you.”

Robbe nodded. He was about to speak again when abruptly Milan and Senne appeared beside them; Senne’s mouth was smeared with blood and they were both slightly sweaty and breathless.

“Driesen,” he said accusingly, “you never brought me my drink.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Sander, guilty. “I got distracted.”

“Oh, did you,” said Senne, and he and Milan swapped a smirking glance.

“You look like you found some of your own, anyway,” said Sander defensively, and like a whipstrike Senne reached out, grabbed his head to hold him still, licked one of his cheeks clean. Sander gave a surprised little grunt of protest, but he didn’t resist, and when Senne pulled back Robbe saw that Sander’s face was warm with pleasure.

“I have my own whenever I want it,” said Senne cheerfully. “Thanks, Driesen.”

“Fuck you,” said Sander without venom. “ _ You’re  _ in a good mood.”

“I feel great,” said Senne with emphasis, and Milan rolled his eyes with such theatrical emphasis that Robbe laughed out loud to watch him.

“And  _ you _ didn’t want to dance.” 

“Yeah, yeah, Hendrickx, thanks for fucking forcing me,” said Senne, laughing. “Anyway. I figured it was time for me to separate the lovebirds. Stoffels is going to castrate me for allowing you two to be alone for as long as I did.”

“That’s you and me both, then,” said Robbe, and Senne tipped his head at him in camaraderie. Sander, watching them, felt his chest go warm once again.

“So I was thinking we should probably leave to meet your Elder soon,” said Milan to Robbe. “We’ve been here for - ah - quite some time.”

“Have we?” Robbe blinked at him; it could have been an hour or a day and he wouldn’t have known the difference.

“Yes,” said Milan, grinning. “Probably too long. So I was thinking I definitely need to come with you to dinner and help explain where you were in case Jens gets bitchy about it.”

“I think that’s an amazing idea,” said Robbe with relief.

“I don’t want you to go yet,” said Sander, and when Robbe looked at him he was slammed with the abrupt, striking knowledge that he would miss Sander when he left.

“Well, that’s the other thing,” said Milan delicately, and as one suspicious unit Robbe, Sander, and Senne all turned to stare at him. “I was  _ thinking _ that maybe Driesen and de Smet should join us for dinner, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like...I originally intended to go one way with Senne here...but I feel like the straightforwardness of that might be changing. We'll see how it flows.

**Author's Note:**

> SOOOOOOO I know there's kinda implied tension between Robbe & Jens and Sander & Senne BUT it's not uncommon for Elders and Fledglings to be unnaturally close; it's canon in my head for angel Robbe to have sort of a thing for angel Jens as he does in wtFock before he meets Sander. With demons, it's the same; often Makers and Fledglings have casual sexual relationships, so you can do with that what you will but it's not gonna factor in here because Sander is literally about to meet the love of his EXISTENCE. WEEWOO.
> 
> If y'all wanna freak out about Skam with me I'm on tumblr [right over here](https://luludemauryyy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
